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THE ¥All \yiTH MEXICO REVIEWED. 



THE 



WAR WITH MEXICO 



REVIEWED. 



BY y 

ABIEL ABBOT LIYERMORE 




BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY. 
1850. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by 

JOHN FIELD, Treas. Am. Peack Soc, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 



A N D V E R : 

J. D. FLAGG AND W. H. WARDWELL, 

STEREOTTPERS AND PRINTERS. 



NOTE. 
The Committe of Award, consisting of the Hon. Simon Green- 
leaf, LL. D., the Eev. William Jenks, T>. D., and the Rev. Baron 
Stow, D. D., adjudged to the following work the Premium of Five 
Hundred Dollars offered by the American Peace Society for " the 
best Review of the Mexican War on the principles of Christianity, 
and an enlightened statesmanship." 

GEORGE C. BECKWITH, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Peace Society. 



PREFACE. 



The delay in publishing tMs Review demands a word 
of apology or explanation. The author was absent in 
the West Indies for the benefit of his health when the 
award was made by the judges, and he did not return 
home until June. Since that date the leisure which 
could be snatched from numerous professional duties 
has been devoted to a careful revision of the work, and 
the incorporating of some new materials, procured at 
the seat of government by personal research and the 
kindness of friends. For a session of Congress has 
intervened since the essay was written, which has con- 
firmed and developed some important points. Hence 
the attempt is made to bring its conclusions down to 
the present time. 

The conflict with Mexico was short, and, measured on 
the scale of European warfare, comparatively insignifi- 
cant, but in its lessons it is instructive, and in its effects 
on a forming national character powerful. To draw 
good out of its evils, is the aim of the American Peace 
Society, and of the work which now goes forth under 



Viii PREFACE. 



its auspices. War, the great social AYrong, like idolatry, 
the great spiritual injury, must fall in due time before 
the progress of the Gospel. To doubt this result, seems 
to presume that the Prince of Peace has come in vain, 
and that finite creatures can eventualy frustrate the 
plan of the Infinite Creator. Meanwhile, for the justi- 
fication of the humble labors of any individual or socfety 
in so stupendous a regeneration, it is enough to say, that 
God works by means and by men. When was the 
lowest whisper of prayer unheeded, or the faintest effort 
unblessed, that ran parallel with his benevolent purposes 
and his eternal laws ? 

The highest ambition of the writer will be amply 
satisfied, if these pages shall contribute to swell in a 
small degree the rising tide of public opinion in favor 
of Peace, and awaken a deeper abhorrence for the 
bloody and needless arbitration of the sword. 

A. A. LIVERMORE. 

Keene, N. H., September 11, 1849. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. Pages. 

INTEODUCTION 1-5 

CHAPTER n. 

CIRCUMSTANCES PKEDISPOSINO TO THE WAB WITH 

MEXICO 5-13 

CHAPTER in. 

THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE "WAR 13-32 

CHAPTiiii IV. 

PBETEXTS FOR WAR 32-39 

CHAPTER V. 

PREPARATION OF WAR 40-50 

CHAPTER VL 

THE BEGINNING AND ENDING OF THE WAR, ARGUMENTS 

FOR PEACE . 51-66 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED 66-81 

CHAPTER Vni. 

THE EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR 82-102 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE .... 102-114 

CHAPTER X. 

THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD .... 115-122 

CHAPTER XI. 

LEGITIMATE BARBAEITIES OF THE WAR . . . 122-139 

CHAPTER Xn. 

ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES 137-156 

CHAPTER Xm. 

MILITARY EXECUTIONS 156-161 

CHAPTER XIV. 

ILLEGALITIES 162-167 

CHAPTER XV. 

POLITICAL EVILS OF THE ^yXB, AT HOME . . . 168-179 

CHAPTER XVI. 

POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR ABROAD . . . 179-187 



CONTENTS. Xi 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE NEW TERRITORIES 187-199 

CHAPTER XYin. 

NE-W SCHEMES OF INVASION AND ANNEXATION . . 200-203 

CHAPTER XIX. 

MILITARY GLORY 204-208 

CHAPTER XX. 

THE TRUE DESTINY OP THE UNITED STATES . . 208-212 

CHAPTER XXI. 

THE statesman's RETRIBUTION 213-219 

CHAPTER XXn. 

WAR MAXIMS 219-227 

CHAPTER XXHL 

MARTIAL LITERATURE 227-230 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

WAR AND THE FIRE-SIDE 231 - 240 

CHAPTER XXV. 

THE VICES OF THE CAMP 240-245 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST . • 245-254 



XU CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER xxyn. 

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED ...,'. 245-258 

CHAPTER XXVin. 

LESSONS OF THE WAR 259-269 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

SUBSTITUTES FOB 'WAB 269-277 

CmVPTER XXX. 

PACIFICATION OP THE WORLD 277-281 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

CONCLUSION 281-287 

APPENDIX 

THE HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THE WAB .... 287 $eq. 



THE WAR WITH MEXICO REVIEWED, 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTION. 



" The principles of true politics are merely those of morality en- 
larged." — Burke. 

History has assumed, under the light of the Gospel, a 
new value. It is no longer regarded as owing its chief in- 
terest to its royal genealogies, or its bloody record of battles. 
It is beginning to be understood, that the Providence of God 
is manifested through the rise and fall of nations. The ac- 
tors in the scenes of the past have been the agents of a high- 
er power than they themselves recognized. "The hoary 
registers of time" are the map of the grand march of human- 
ity. To draw the moral of history, therefore, becomes of 
equal importance to the office of narrating its events. If it 
be " philosophy teaching by example," it becomes a question 
of the first importance to learn what the examples teach ; 
what warning of evil, what encouragement to hope ; what 
lessons for rulers, or for the people. And since the light has 
shone down out of Heaven upon the dark confusion of hu- 

1 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

man aftairs, we can discern a meaning in the most perplex- 
ing passages, and trace a guiding clew thi'ough labyrinths 
more intricate than that of Crete. 

In harmony with the comprehensive use, thus briefly in- 
dicated, of civil and political history, the American Peace 
Society wished to subject the late war between the United 
States and Mexico to the crucible of a philosophical and 
Christian analysis. The friends of peace have often drawn 
their arguments and illustrations in vindication of their holy 
cause from Herodotus and Thucydides, or Hume and Rob- 
ertson ; but unhappily they have now been provided with a 
fearful strife nearer home, whose fields of blood are hardly 
yet dry, and whose wounds are still ghastly, from which they 
may teach the evils of international war. And now the thun- 
der of artillery and the shrieks of the wounded having died 
away, they wish to repeat again in mournful recitative, 
though it be but with a jarring human tongue, the angel's 
sweet hymn, " on earth peace, good will toward men." 

The language of the schedule, issued by the Society in 
February, 1847, was as follows : " The Review should be 
written without reference to political parties, and present 
such a view of the subject as will commend itself, when the 
hour of sober and candid reflection shall come, to the good 
sense of fair-minded men in every party and in all sections 
of the country. The war, in its origin, its progress, and the 
whole sweep of its evils to all concerned, should be reviewed 
on the principles of Christianity and of enlightened states- 
manship ; showing especially its waste of treasure and hu- 
man life; — its influence upon the interests of morality and 
religion, — its inconsistency with the genius of our republi- 
can institutions, as well as with the precepts of our re- 
ligion, and the spirit of the age, — its bearings immediate and 
remote, on free, popular governments here and through the 
world ; — how its evils might have been avoided with better re- 
sults to both parties ; — and ivhat means may and should be 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

adopted hy nations to preveMt similar evils in future. Our sole 
aim is to promote the cause of permanent peace, by turning 
this war into eiFectual warnings against resorts to the sword 
hereafter." 

Here, then, is a distinct purpose, avowed at the outset, to 
use the Mexican War as an argument for the cause of peace ; 
to " beat its swords into ploughshares, and its spears into 
pruning hooks," for the culture of humane and Christian sen- 
timents. Without following the above-mentioned order of 
topics, with rigid accuracy, it will then be the aim, both of 
our logic and our rhetoric, in this. Essay, to draw the moral 
of this event in the nineteenth century, and to employ it as 
a powerful instrument, furnished by our opponents them- 
selves, — if peace have any opponents, — to scatter the illu- 
sions of military glory, and to reveal the incalculable evils of 
international war. We have great advantages for the ac- 
complishment of this purpose, in the very recent occurrence 
of the contest ; the voluminous public documents, correspon- 
dence, and speeches ; the numerous memoirs, sketches, and 
letters, written by eye and ear-witnesses and actors in the 
field and the camp ; and in able and eloquent essays, for and 
against the war, which have been laid before the public dur- 
ing its progress. Much of the history of the blood-stained 
past has been written and sung by the advocates of war, the 
bards and historians of the world's boisterous childhood, who 
have showered the richest gifts of their genius upon those 
fierce heroes, who were ready to 

" Wade through slaughter to a throne, 
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind." 

But the time has now come to examine the subject of war in 
.ill its aspects and all its issues ; to decompose its glittering 
fabric of glory into its constituent elements ; and while it is 
'■ fresh and gory," to arrest the fugitive attention of the pub- 
lic, and confine it to the solemn lessons of Providence and 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

Revelation. And lie, whose pen is moved by pulses from a 
Christian heart, will not fear to question any customs, usages, 
or laws pertaining to this relic of barbarism, according to the 
plain and positive precepts of Christ, and the whole spirit 
of his religion. Such is the subject, plan and promise 
of the following pages ; the fulfilment must rest with Him, 
who deigns to be a co-worker with the humblest of his crea- 
tures for good. 

In the investigation of this war, we would rise, as suggest- 
ed in the circular of the Society, far above the tempestuous 
region of partisan politics, and the extravagances of zealous, 
but injudicious reformers. We would speak, as men bound 
by the laws of natural justice, and as Christians bowing to 
the benevolent precepts of Christ, as the ultimate authority 
in every question of public, not less than of private morals. 
One of the vices of the times is headlong ultraism ; — the ul- 
traism of conservatism, as well as that of radicalism. Impa- 
tient of halves, men " go the whole," to use the national 
phrase. It is not a day of qualification, or moderation. Par- 
ties tolerate none in their ranks, that will not ride the pen- 
dulum of their peculiar notions to the utmost point of its 
swing. The very nature and form of social progress, devel- 
oped in our country, predisposes us to this fierce intolerance. 
The rush and eagerness of our daily life, the earnest enter- 
prise that is busy all over the land, that plies every tool and 
machine, spins along the lines of city intercourse, pours forth 
into forests and prairies, skims every river and lake, and ca- 
reers over every ocean, in the pursuit of wealth, naturally 
incUne our people to adopt very decided opinions upon eveiy 
subject. They act under a momentum that easily throws 
them into extremes. We would guard against this weakness. 
We would speak " the words of truth and soberness." How- 
ever severe may be our judgment of the late contest between 
the United States and Mexico, it shall be a censure within 
the bounds of reason and religion, and therefore commending 



CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR. 5 

itself to whatever there may be of reason and religion in 
the minds of our readers ; and all the more severe because 
springing not from wholesale and indiscriminate abuse, but 
from the simple and eternal principles of right. It requires 
no far-fetched proofs or strained positions ; no fanatic ap- 
peals or ultra doctrines, to brand the war in question with 
an adequate seal of infamy. For its own history is its suf- 
ficient exposure. Its origin, causes, purposes, and results 
are truth-telling witnesses against it. To be abhorred and 
condemned, it needs but to be recorded and reviewed. 



CHAPTER II. 

CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR WITH 

MEXICO. 

" If that the Heavens do not their visible spirits 
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences, 
'T \^•ill come. :* # # 
Humanity must, perforce, prey on itself, 
Like moDSters of the deep." — Shakspeare. 

No event in history has an independent and solitary exist- 
ence. All its facts may be said, in one sense, to be the 
effect of all that precedes, and the cause of all that follows, 
For history is not so much a chain, as a network. Its trans- 
actions do not obey a law of simple succession, but of intri- 
cate combination. The working out of the great designs of 
Providence is furthered by a diversity of agencies, — some 
in conflict, and otliers in alliance. We can, therefore, under- 
stand historically nothing by itself. To know even one 

1* 



6 CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR. 

nation truly and thoroughly, we need to know all nations. 
Viewed according to this judgment, the history of mankind 
is a unity, and its truest designation is universal. 

This general principle holds true, in its application to the 
important matter under review. To comprehend it aright, 
we need to have been diligent students of the past as well 
as the present. It involves, especially, the great questions 
of European colonization in America, in the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, under the English, or Protestant, and 
Continental, or Catholic forms, and their respective issues 
down to this moment. 

In truth, far back even beyond the third and fourth gene- 
ration, the causes have been in process to predispose us to 
this Mexican crisis, and, if prudence and wisdom did not 
govern both the aggrieved and the aggressor, to plunge us in 
a brute strife. This is no sudden leap. This is no mine 
sprung T\'ithout warning. On both sides, the elements have 
been silently brewing, through many years, for the issues of 
to-day. As the cannons that have mowed down ranks of 
living men, and the deadly bombs that have crashed through 
homes of affection, have in many cases been lying rusty and 
ancient, the relics of days gone by ; so have the causes that 
set these horrid engines in operation been long accumulat- 
ing in the arsenal, so to speak, and lying unused, until the 
fatal imprudence or passion of one or both parties has sum- 
moned them into action. 

To specify a leading cause, we would advert to what Sir 
Robert Peel has called, in the British Parhament, " a devel- 
opment of military ambition in the United States ; " in one 
sense, both cause and effect of the war with Mexico. The 
attentive student of lii story will be at no loss to trace the 
origin and growth of this fearful passion. For the time we 
have existed as a people, we have been no sluggards in the 
use of the sword. The old French and Indian wars occu- 
pied our great grandfathers ; the Revolution our grand- 



CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR. 7 

fathers; the war of 1812 our fathers, and Creek and Che- 
rokee expatriations, and Black Hawk, Patriot, Seminole, and 
Mormon skirmishes their sons. The martial spirit is always 
a tiger, and we have given the tiger too much room and 
freedom. In fact, the Temple of Peace has not remained 
long shut during our national existence. Though most of 
our wars have been small ones, that circumstance has not 
prevented their imbuing a large portion of our citizens with 
the ambition of arms. It is one of our maxims, that " in 
time of peace we should prepare for war." The whole 
population are armed ; there is not, probably, a house in the 
country, unless it belong to a Quaker or a Non-resistant, 
without its sword, pistol, musket, or rifle. The expenses of 
our army and navy, even in time of peace, have always ex- 
ceeded, by many milUons, the maximum of the civil list. 
Hence there is always existing a large profession of men, 
whose seeming interest it is to have their country engaged 
in war ; for then every expenditure in this direction is enor- 
mously increased ; active service creates vacancies and accel- 
erates promotions ; and the prize money of war is better 
than the earnings of industry. 

But other causes, besides those above noted, have contri- 
buted to awaken in "Young America" the aspiration for 
military renown. General hterature, whether in the form 
of poetry, oratory, or history, and whether imported or 
domestic, has always thrown the decisive preponderance of 
its influence into the war scale. Repubhcans have wished 
to show that they were equal to the performance of any feat 
that king or kaiser ever dared, or that minstrel ever sung. 
It has been openly avowed on the floor of Congress, by the 
most distinguished men of the country, that the time had 
arrived for us to do " some great thing," to let the Old 
World know that we were not the cowards or sluggards 
they miglit otherwise suppose us to be. As if it were not 
well known in every land, from north to south, that the 



8 CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR. 

United States was rising to be a leading power in the eartli ; 
as if two wars with the British monarchy, in which we cer- 
tainly were not worsted, were not sufficient witnesses to our 
valor, without seeking a quarrel with a rent and distracted 
nation to show our republican manhood; as if the good 
opinion of the crumbhng, bankrupt, starving, war-taxed, and 
groaning kingdoms of Europe were to be purchased at the 
fearful price of one di'op of human blood unrighteously 
shed. In the recent tremendous agitations, that have swept 
like a resistless tide over that continent, the example of 
republican America has been loudly and cheeringly quoted ; 
— would that we were more worthy of the title of the ban- 
ner republic ! — but what has been quoted for imitation, for 
inspiration, for justification, by the masses struggling for 
their inalienable rights, has not been our wars, our slave- 
ries, our inconsistencies, but our equal rights, our bread 
enough and to spare, our wise institutions, our world-re- 
nowned enterprise and industiy, and our unrivalled pros- 
perity. 

Again ; the pride of race has swollen to still greater in- 
solence the pride of country, always quite active enough 
for the due observance of the claims of universal brother- 
hood. The Anglo-Saxons have been apparently persuaded 
to tliiiik themselves the chosen people, the anointed race of 
the Lord, commissioned to drive out the heathen, and plant 
their religion and institutions in every Canaan they could 
subjugate. The idea of a "destiny," connected with this 
race, has gone far to justify, if not to sanctify, many an act 
on either side of the Atlantic ; for which both England and 
the United States, if nations can be personified, ought to 
hang their heads in shame, and weep scalding tears of re- 
pentance. When they can produce any Mosaic commission 
from the Almighty King of kings, to diffuse the gospel of 
peace at the point of the bayonet, or the benign arts and 
sciences of a civilized age by the brute force of an earlier 



CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR. d 

period, it will be quite time enough to consider their author- 
ity. Meanwhile, the inquiry presses powerfully, are these 
same destined Anglo-Saxon missionaries so immaculate in 
their character, so wise in their great national ideas, and so 
unbendingly true in their realization of them, that they have 
earned a title or authenticated " a divine right " to conquer 
and colonize the rest of God's earth ? And when on one 
shore we have taken the guage of L-eland's woes and 
wrongs, and the oppressions of the factories, collieries, ships, 
and colonies of England ; and, on the other shore, recalled 
the repudiation of State debts, the slavery of three millions 
of immortal beings, and the endless wrongs of the natives 
of the soil, which we so proudly tread, to enumerate no 
other crimes ; — we shall admit, with gi'eat reluctance, that 
either of the gigantic progenies of the Anglo-Saxon race 
has established by past wisdom, fidelity, or consistency, a 
presumptive title to be appointed guardian over the decrepid 
races of the Eastern or Western hemisphere. They may, 
doubtless, plead the right of might; but that is far from 
being the might of right. They may use the old appeal, 
ultima ratio regum, the ultimate resort of kings, and alas ! 
we now see, of republics too ; but so long as they have no 
more divine method than that, of civilizing the savage, and 
Christianizing the heathen, they are held down by an eter- 
nal gravitation to the vulgar level of 

" Macedonia's madman and the Swede." 

True, they possess arts and arms, but there are even more 
potent agents than these in the progress of humanity. Have 
we read the history of sixty centuries, and failed to leam 
even the alphabet of the sublime lessons she would teach, — • 
that truth, love, righteousness, great and heavenly piinciples 
only, can worthily and successfully preside over the pro- 
cesses of human improvement? It is still an unsettled 



10 CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR. 

question, whether the Crusades, the Norman conquest, or the 
wars of the old French Revolution, did more evil or good. 
But there is not the glimmer of a doubt that the mariner's 
compass, the art of printing, the steamboat, the railroad, and 
the telegraph, have been ministers of good to mankind. 
We must be dull scholars in the Christian lore, and the 
veriest laggards in the work of the present age, if we still 
cherish the old folly of ambition and vainglory that has 
demonized the nations of the dead. But not to dwell longer 
upon considerations that will come up again in another con- 
nection, none can be blind to the pride of race as one of the 
causes that has prompted the hostihties in Mexico. 

European emigration, too, has had its effect. Hundreds 
of thousands, with all their old-world ideas, unbaptized into 
the spirit of liberty, except it be as license, have been trans- 
planted into the vast regions of the IMiddle States, the 
West and South- West. They have been accustomed to the 
bloody dramas of Europe, and <they have supposed that the 
same must be acted over again in America. Far be it from 
us to take up any slanderous speech against our emigrant 
brethren, many of whom have shown themselves capable of 
understanding the rights and discharging the obligations of 
freemen, and have added much to the wealth, intelligence, 
and morality of their adopted country. But it is well known 
that no inconsiderable part of the American army has con- 
sisted of foreigners. They have been warmly commended 
as showing, by their readiness to enlist, and espouse our 
quarrels, their enthusiasm in the cause of liberty, and fidelity 
to their land of refuge. But the lover of peace will see, at 
the bottom of this fair-seeming, the dangerous element of 
military habits, acquired during the turbulent scenes of the 
last fifty years, transferred from the banks of the Rhine, the 
Elbe, and the Shannon, to those of the Ohio, the Missouri, 
and the Colorado. The" roots of the old war-encumbered 
civilization, — torn and broken, indeed, but possessing an 



CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR. 11 

unyielding tenacity of life, — are set out in the rich soil of 
the American prairies. Whether they live and bear their 
bitter fruits, or wither and die, is for the friends of peace, 
under God, to decide. The great valley of the West may 
become the hot-bed of war; and nothing but a wide and 
early dissemination of the pacific principles of the Gospel, 
by books, tracts, lectures, and conversation, can prevent our 
late foray into a sister republic from being the prolific seed 
of sorrows without end. 

Indeed, the slow advance in their full power, of the school- 
house and the church, after the fugitives that have gone into 
the wilderness, has given time for a rank development of 
barbaric passions and habits. The tendencies to physical 
violence, somewhere or upon somebody, it mattered little 
where or upon whom, have had too little check. The true 
American ideas have been supplanted by a system of Bed- 
ouin morality in the minds of not a few, cast beyond the con- 
trol of a high-toned public conscience. Powerful as the 
older and more civilized portions of the Union have been in 
their enterprize, zeal for freedom, and moral and religious 
character, Avherever their sons have pitched the tents of 
their wanderings, yet the truth compels us to say, that in 
some portions of the East, the Centre, the feudal South, 
and South- West, and the rude West, the good principles of 
an earlier day have lost their savor, and the way has been 
opened for precisely such results as have been developed 
during the last four years, — the Annexation of Texas, a 
sanguinary and embittered war, and the dismemberment of 
Mexico. The relations of cause and eifect hold true in the 
moral as surely as in the material world. Nations reap 
what they sow. We have, in sober fact, been educating 
ourselves for a considerable time for just such issues as have 
lately been developed. Our treatment both of the red man 
and the black man, has habituated us to " feel our power, 
and forget right." Wars enough have been waged to keep 



12 CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR. 

our muskets bright. Our fourth-of-July oratory has inserted 
in youthful veins the deadly virus of warlike passion. The 
dauntless enterprize of the emigrants who have battled with 
the wolf and the savage for their domains, and who have 
been " famous according as they had lifted up axes upon the 
thick trees," * has been but too ready, under the promptings 
of a selfish aggrandizement, to conquer armies as well as 
forests, and to blow up capitals with as little compunction 
as steamboats. The West and South have many noble and 
heroic elements of character ; but a true friend of either will 
not hesitate to bid them respectively beware of War and 
Slavery, as institutions and customs at variance with free 
institutions and the Christian religion. 

The passion for land, also, is a leading characteristic of 
the American people. Coming out of the straitened limits 
of the old countries, where human beings seem to be hydro- 
statically compressed within the smallest possible limits, 
they naturally expatiate at large upon the boundless savan- 
nahs of an unappropriated soil. A vast, indefinite, but ever- 
haunting ambition, seizes the new comer. The physical 
grandeur of scale awakens an aspiring imagination. Ter- 
ritory becomes inwoven to all ideas of personal or national 
welfare. Almost every man owns his rood or his township 
of this generous fee-simple of nature; and almost every 
farmer owns and attempts to till more than is justified by 
good husbandry. Tliis may prove true nationally, not less 
than agriculturally. An incessant grasping after more ter- 
ritory has characterized our past policy. The god Ter- 
minus is an unknown deity in America. Like the hunger 
of the pauper boy of fiction, the cry has been, " More, more, 
give us more." But we must confess that we have actually 
settled and subdued to the uses of civilization only a minor 
part of the vast regions we occupy. We have struck the 

* Psalm 74 : 5. 



THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAR. 13 

Pacific Ocean, and, far from being content with the immense 
slopes of the Rockj Mountai'ns, and the great Valley of the 
Mississippi on the east, and that of the Columbia on the 
west, we have chafed against the boundaries of nature and 
of our neighbors, and, like Jezebel, have coveted their 
vineyards. The history of the last few years has yielded a 
melancholy illustration of the eloquent special pleading of 
the exhorbitant passions, and the self-deceivmg justifications 
of ambition. Prompt excuses have been discovered for this 
boa-constrictor appetite of swallowing states and provinces, 
in the glory of free institutions, the blessings of civil and 
religious liberty, and the extension of our industrial and 
commercial system. Alas ! we have thus discovered opiates 
to lull our consciences when they were uneasy, and tonics to 
invigorate our ambition when it was halting. VUnder the 
dominion of tliis lust for territory, however acquired, we 
have pushed onwards in a hot and unjustifiable invasion, 
and by a compulsory peace, have extorted from our neigh- 
bors more than half a milHon of square miles of land, 
reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, across the breadth 
of the North American continent. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAR. 

" He finds his fellow guilty of a skin 
Kot colored like his own ; and having power 
T' enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause, 
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey." — Cowpee. 

The motives which actuate public men and political par- 
ties, are not always openly avowed. There are secrets of 

2 



14 THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAR. 

state in the administration of republican as well as despotic 
governments, though not of the same number or extent. 
The causes which determine the line of national policy, can 
sometimes only be inferred, though the inference may be 
raised to a high degree of probability. Important docu- 
ments, which would no doubt throw great light upon inter- 
national affairs, are buried in the archives of state, and a 
seal put upon their publication by the plea, more or less 
valid, that it wovild embarrass the public service. We are, 
therefore, left somewhat in the dark in reasoning upon the 
events of history, though of a very recent date ; and we can 
hope to reach in our conclusions only a reasonable measure 
of moral probability, not an irresistible mathematical cer- 
tainty. 

The circumstances enumerated in the last chapter, were 
predisposing causes of war, but, of themselves, they would 
not have produced that unhappy result. Hence we look for 
some more positive and potent element. We are ready to 
concede sometliing to the pacific settlement of the Oregon 
question, which turned the war spirit into a new channel ; — 
something to the desire of giving eclat to a new administra- 
tion ; something to the vast expansion of civil and military 
patronage produced by war ; something to the interested 
clamor of Mexican claimants and their friends ; something 
to the magic power of Texan scrip ; something to a wide- 
spread suspicion and a quick jealousy of European inter- 
ference in the affairs of this continent ; but we feel confident 
that we are stating a solemn and incontrovertible truth, 
when we say that we discern in slavery the main-spring to 
the war with Mexico. Had the idea of extending the 
" peculiar " institutions of the South, and the political power 
resulting therefrom, been entirely excluded from the ques- 
tion, not a shot would ever have been fired. 

We desire to make such a record on this point as will 
stand justified fifty years hence, when the planners and 



THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAR. 15 

actors in present scenes have passed oft' the stage. For 
the purpose of confirming our statements, we shall take the 
liberty of quoting published and authentic documents, with- 
out reference to parties. We shall thus be led directly to 
the conclusion expressed above. 

It is unnecessary here to recount the details of the annex- 
ation of Texas to the United States, as our aim is not a his- 
tory, so much as a review, of an important portion of history, 
recent and well-known. That event, however, was regard- 
ed by Mexico as an act of war in itself, and was, no doubt, 
one of the prominent causes, notwithstanding all disclaim- 
ers, that led to the actual commencement of hostilities ; for 
our armies surely never would have advanced either to the 
Nueces or to the Rio Grande, had it not been for the osten- 
sible purpose of protecting our newly-acquired domains. 
But the scheme of Annexation was devised, — as openly 
declared by some of its staunchest advocates, — to give 
greater security to the institutions of the South. The clear 
and direct inference is, that slavery and the war with Mex- 
ico have had a cause-and-effect connection. Had slavery 
not existed in our land, there would have been no annex- 
ation ; and had there been no annexation, there would have 
been no strife. Who can dispute these propositions, when 
he has candidly and truthfully weighed the following decla- 
rations of some of the leading politicians of the day ? The 
idea of Southern aggrandizement was early broached and 
steadily avowed. Let the credible witnesses give their tes- 
timony. 

Mr. Upshur was a member of the Virginia Convention 
in 1820, and said in that body : " Nothing is more fluctuat- 
ing than the value of slaves. A late law of Louisiana re- 
duced their value twenty-five per cent in two hours after its 
passage Avas known. If it should be our lot, as I trust it 
wiU, to acquire Texas, their price will rise." * 

* Debates of that body. 



16 THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAR. 

Mr. Doddridge, another member of the same convention, 
made a similar declaration ; " that the acquisition of Texas 
would greatly enhance the value of the property in question."* 

Mr. Gholson said, in the Legislature of Virginia in 1832 ; t 
" that the price of slaves fell twenty-five per cent within two 
hours after the news was received of the non-importation 
act which was passed by the Legislature of Louisiana. Yet 
he believed the acquisition of Texas would raise their price 
fifty per cent at least." 

Mr. Calhoun avowed his opinions in the Senate of the 
United States, as early as May 23, 1836 ; " there were pow- 
erful reasons why Texas should be a part of this Union. 
The Southern States owning a slave population were deep- 
ly interested in preventing that country from having the 
power to annoy them ; and the navigating and manufactur- 
ing interests of the North, were equally interested in making 
it a part of the Union." j 

Meantime, the Cuban slave-trade had fearfully increased, 
and fresh commissions were constantly arriving at Havana 
from Texas, to buy the wretched sons of Africa who had 
been torn from their native soil, and transported across the 
ocean by fiends in human shape. President Houston said 
in his annual Message to the Congress of the Republic of 
Texas, in 1837; "not unconnected with the naval force of 
the country is the subject of the African slave-trade. It 
cannot be disbelieved that thousands of Africans have lately 
been imported to the Island of Cuba, with a design to trans- 
fer a large portion of them into this republic^ The British 
commissioners for the suppression of the slave-trade, who 
resided in Cuba agreeably to the treaty of 1817 with Spain, 
reported that twenty-seven slave-vessels arrived in Havana 
in 1833, thirty-three m 1834, fifty in 1836, and m 1835, that 

* See note on preceding, page. 

t Journal of Session, 1832. 

% 29th Congress, 2d Session, Congressional Globe, pp. 495. 



THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAR. 17 

more than fifteen thousand negroes must have been landed ! 
Sir T. F. Buxton stated that in 1837 and 1838, no less than 
" fifteen thousand negroes had been imported from Africa 
into Texas." Other accounts rate the number still higher. 
One Taylor, of Barbadoes, was convicted of sending free 
negroes to this new market, and selling them. The Albany 
Argus of 1844, mentions the case of one man who sent ten 
thousand dollars to Cuba for the purchase of human beings. 
The emigrants from the United States had a palpable mo- 
tive to expose this infamous traffic, and seek to extinguish it, 
because it cheapened their own slaves. * 

The project of annexation was not suffered to sleep, but 
from year to year was cherished and developed by its zeal- 
ous and untiring friends. The great end, too, which it 
would eventually subserve, was kept distinctly in view. 

Mr. Upshur, Secretary of State, wrote to W. S. Murphy, 
charge d 'affaires of the United States in Texas, in a letter 
dated Washington, Aug. 8, 1843, as follows ; " The establish- 
ment, in the very midst of our slave-holding States, of an 
independent Government, forbidding the existence of slave- 
ry, and by a people born for the most part among us, reared 
up in our habits, and spreading our language, could not fail 
to produce the most unhappy effects upon both parties. If 
Texas were in that condition, her territory would afford a 
ready refuge for the fugitive slaves of Louisiana and Arkan- 
sas, and would hold out to them, an encouragement to run 
away which no municipal regulations of those States could 
possibly counteract." 

***** 

" Few calamities could befal this country more to be de- 
plored than the establishment of a predominant British in- 
fluence, and the abolition of domestic slavery in Texas." f 



^ Moody's Facts for the People, pp. 69, 70. 

t 28th Congress, 1st Se.ssion, Senate, 341, pp. 21, 22. 

2* 



18 THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAR. 

On Sept. 2 2d, the subject was renewed ; he said : — " there 
is no reason to fear that there will be any difference of 
opinion among the slave-holding States ; and there is a large 
number in the non-slave-holding States; with views suf- 
ficiently liberal to embrace a policy absolutely necessary to 
the salvation of the south, although, in some respects, objec- 
tionable to themselves." * 

He wrote to Mr. Murphy, Jan. 16, 1844, "if Texas 
should not be attached to the United States, he cannot main- 
tain that institution ten years, and probably not half that 
time." t 

Said Mr. Murphy to Mr. Upshur, Sept. 23d ; " Saying 
nothing therefore which can offend even our fanatical breth- 
ren of the North ; let the United States espouse at once the 
cause of civil, political and religious liberty (?) in this hem- 
isphere ; this will be found to he the safest issue to go before 
the world icith^ % 

* * * * He wrote on Sept. 24th ; " The 
Constitution of Texas § secures to the Master, the perpetual 
right to his slave, and prohibits the introduction of slaves 
into Texas from any other quarter than the United States. 

" If the United States preserves and secures to Texas the 
possession of her Constitution, and present form of Govern- 
ment, then we have gained all we can desire, and also all 

that Texas asks or wishes." 

***** 

" Take this position on the side of the constitution and 
the laws, and the civil, political and religious liberties of the 

* 28th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, 341, p. 26. tibid. p. 46. 
\ Ibid. p. 2.5. 

§ Art 8. Sec. 1. Laws of Texas. "The Legislature shall have no 
power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves, without the consent 
of their owners, nor without paying their owners previously to such 
emancipation, a full equivalent in money for the slaves so eman- 
ci[uit(d." 



THE CHIEF MOTIVE OP THE WAR. 19 

people secured thereby, {saying nothing about abolition) and 
all the world will be with you." * 

Mr. Upshur writes, Nov. 21, 1843, in a letter to Mr. Mur- 
phy, " we regard it, (annexation) as involving the security 
of the South ; and the strength and prosperity of every part 
of the Union." 

It would be easy to quote by chapter and verse, from the 
official documents of the time, many passages of a similar 
import. But as Mr. Calhoun has said,t " I may now right- 
fully and indisputably claim to be the author of that great 
event," (annexation), let us look at his declarations on this 
subject. 

His language was to Mr. Pakenham, the British Minister, 
April 18, 1844: "It is with still deeper concern the Presi- 
dent regards the avowal of Lord Aberdeen of the desire 
of Great Britain to see slavery aboUshed in Texas.| 

And on the 19th, he wrote to Mr. Green, charge d' affaires 
to Texas : " It was impossible for the United States to wit- 
ness with indifference the efforts of Great Britain to abolish 
slavery there." § 

Respecting the Treaty of Annexation, then under nego- 
tiation, he wrote to the British Minister, on the 27th, that 
" It was made necessary in order to preserve domestic insti- 
tutions, placed under the guaranty of their (United States 

* 28th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, 341, pp. 23, 24. 

t Printed speech in the Senate, Feb. 24, 1847, p. 3. 

} 28th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, 341, p. 50. 

Mr. Benton well criticised this extreme sensitiveness, in his speech 
in the Senate on the Treaty of Annexation, May 16, 18 and 20, 1844. 
Reported in the National Intelligencer, May 30, 1844. "Great Britain 
avows all she intends, and that a wish — to see — slavery abolished in 
Texas ; and she declares all the means which she means to use, and 
that is, advice where it is acceptable. 

" It will be a strange spectacle, in the nineteenth century, to behold 
the United States at war with Mexico, because Great Britain wishes — 
to see the abolition of slavery in Texas." 

4 28th Coimrcs!;. 1st Session, Senate, 841, pp. 54, 66. 



20 THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAK. 

and Texas) respective constitutions,, and deemed essential to 
their safety and prosperity." * 

And in a speech in the Senate, Feb. 24, 1847, he said, — 
" Sir, I admit, even at that early period, I saw that the 
incorporation of Texas into this Union, would be indispen- 
sable both to her safety and ours. I saw that it was impos- 
sible that she could stand as an independent power between 
us and Mexico, without becoming the scene of intrigue of 
foreign Powers, alike destructive of the peace and security 
of both Texas and ourselves. I saw more : I saw the bear- 
ing of the slave question at that early stage, and that it 
would become an instrument in the hands of a foreign Pow- 
er, of striking a blow at us; and that two conterminous 
slave-holding communities could not co-exist without one 
being wielded to the destruction of the other." f 

The Galveston Gazette, April, 1844, rejects the idea that 
any-thing less than slavery over the Avhole vast region of 
Texas would be accepted by the Southern States. It says 
that, '' It is thrown out, in some of the papers of the United 
States, that the annexation of Texas is to be a measure ef- 
fected by a compromise, a condition being that the Territory 
of Texas is to be divided into three States, in one of which 
slavery is to be tolerated while it is to be prohibited in the 
others. This idea, we think, must have originated from 

* This ])anic was afterwards confessed by some of the chief actors in 
annexation to be a mere ruse, got up for the sake of effect, and with- 
out any substantial foundation in facts. See Gen. Samuel Houston's 
Letter to a friend on the subject, published in 1848, and his speech in 
the Senate, Feb. 19, 1847, Congress. Globe, 29th Congress, 2d Session, 
p. 459. And yet so strong was the jealousy of foreign interference 
thus excited, that Mr. Choate used this language in his speech in the 
Senate on the Treaty of Annexation, May 22, 1844; "Sir, besides 
the apprehension that England will, by treaty or influence, induce 
Texas to emancipate her slaves, — besides this, there is not even tlie 
pretence of a reason for this war (by the separation of Texas from 
Mexico) on your friend. This apprehension is all." 

t Printed speech, p. 8. 



THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAR. 21 

other than official sources ; and the measure proposed would, 
we believe, be far better calculated to defeat than to secure 
the success of the project of annexation. It might satisfy 
the North; but it would displease the South in the same 
proportion, and would, we feel confident, never receive the 
sanction of the slave States." 

Numerous testimonies to the deep interest taken by 
Southern statesmen in the measure of annexation, as des- 
tined to enlarge, not " the area of freedom," but of slavery, 
may be gathered from the discussions both in and out of 
Congress, on the Treaty offered to the Senate for confirma- 
tion by President Tyler. In his Message of April 22, 1844, 
he said : " At the same time, the Southern and the South- 
western States will find, in the fact of annexation, protec- 
tion and security to their peace and tranquillity, as well 
against all domestic as foreign efforts to disturb them."* 

Mr. McDuffie took the same view, in his speech in the 
Senate, May 23, 1844, reported in the National Intelligencer, 
June 8th. Speaking of the African race, he said : " That 
population in the United States cannot be diminished, but 
must be increased. Now, if we shall annex Texas, it will 
operate as a. safety-valve to let off the superabundant slave 
population from among us, and will, at the same time, im- 
prove their condition ; they will be more happy, and we 
shall be more secure. But if you pen them up within our 
present limits, what becomes of the free negroes, and what 
will be their condition ? " 

Mr. Archer, of Virginia, asked in the Senate,t June 8, 
1844: "Did this result, of keeping open a drain for slave 
labor in Texas, involve no advantage to the slave holding 
States ? Certainly, the highest advantage. But it was not 



* 28th Congress, 1st Session, 341, p. 6. 

t 28th Congress, 1st Session, Appendix to Congressional Globe, 
May, 1844 p. 696. 



22 THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAE. 

present pecuniaiy advantage, nor did it tend to the extension 
of slave-holding influence in the government." 

Mr. Foster, Senator from Tennessee, was fraidi and open 
in his avowal in the same debate : " It cannot be denied, Sir, 
but that the measure is essentially Southern in its character 
and purposes, and intended, if its poUcy is hereafter faithfully 
executed, to protect the South and the South West, both at 
home and from abroad, in the more peaceful and secure en- 
joyment of certain property, guarantied to the inhabitants 
of that section of the Union, by the solemn sanctions of the 
Federal Constitution." 

The N. H. Patriot, May, 1844, avowed, that "Slavery 
and the defence of slavery, form the controlling considera- 
tions urged in favor of the treaty (of annexation), by those 
who have been engaged in its negotiations." 

Mr. Preston, of South Carolina, in a speech at Baltimore, 
quoted in the National Intelligencer, Oct. 31, 1844, says: 
" Annexation was desired, for the purpose of sustaining and 
extending the institution of slavery, — a motive by which he 
could not be governed. The institution of slavery was one 
which belonged exclusively to us of the South ; it was our 
own domestic affair ; we were to take care of it for our- 
selves, without any extraneous interference ; and he would 
be the first to resist any such interference. But when he 
attempted to acquire territory, with a view and for the pur- 
pose of extending slavery beyond its proper limits, the case 
was altered ; we had changed our position from the defen- 
sive to the aggressive. Were we, who boast of our free 
principles, to raise the black flag and go to war with a sister 
republic, to extend the institution of slavery ? " 

The New York Evening Post, April, 1844, took a similar 
view of the subject, in an article on the Treaty : " It is 
evident, that this presents to the people of the Union a 
question entirely new, and which they cannot avoid. This 
issue is not as to the abolition of slavery in the Southern 



THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAR. 23 

States, the District, nor the Territories of the Union, but 
whether this government shall devote its whole energies to 
the perpetuation of slavery ; whether all the sister republics 
on this continent, which desire to abolish slavery, are to be 
di-agooned by us into the support of this institution." 

Mr. Calhoun writes a letter to Mr. Pakenham, April 18, 
1844, in which he goes into a labored defence of slavery ; 
seems almost to doubt whether the Free States have done 
well in abolishing it ; declares that Texas is to be annexed, 
to guard against the danger of its being abolished in the 
Southern States ; and finally declares : " That what is called 
slavery is in reality a political institution ; essential to the 
peace, safety, and prosperity of those States of the Union in 
which it exists."* 

The diplomatic agents, both American and Mexican, 
agreed as to the object of annexation, however they might 
differ as to its means and modes. 

S. Bocanegra, Minister of Foreign Relations in Mex- 
ico, wrote to Mr. Green, charge d'affaires to the United 
States, May 30, 1844 :t "But when, in order to sustain 
that slavery, and avoid its disappearance from Texas and 
from other points, recourse is had to the arbitrary act of 
depriving Mexico of an integral part of her possessions, as 
the only certain and efficacious remedy to prevent what Mr. 
Green calls ' a dangerous event ; ' if Mexico should be 
silent, and lend her deference to the present policy of the 
Executive of the United States, the reproach and the cen- 
sure of nations ought to be her reward." 

Mr. Green had previously said, on the 23d of the same 
month, what would justify this Mexican inference : | " The 
undersigned is also instructed to state to the Mexican Gov- 



* 28th Congress, Ist Session, Senate, 341, p. 53. 

t Ibid. 2d Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. 2, p. 54. 

t Ibid. p. 52. 



9A THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE AVAR. 

ernment, that this step (Treaty of Annexation) was forced 
upon the Government of the United States in self-defence, 
in consequence of the poUcy adopted by Great Britain, in 
reference to the abolition of slavery in Texas. It was im- 
possible for the United States to witness with indifference 
the efforts of Great Britain to abolish slavery in that terri- 
tory. They could not but see that she had the means in her 
power, in the actual condition of Texas, to accomplish the 
objects of her policy, unless prevented by the most efficient 
measures ; and that, if accompUshed, it would lead to a state 
of things dangerous in the extreme to the adjacent States, and 
to the Union itself." 

The same idea was continued by JVIr. Shannon, American 
Minister to Mexico, in a letter to S. Rejon, the Mexican 
Secretary, Oct. 14, 1844:* "It (annexation) has been a 
measure of policy, long cherished and deemed indispensable 
to their (United States') safety and welfare, and has, ac- 
cordingly, been an object steadily pursued by all parties, and 
the acquisition of the territory made the subject of negotia- 
tion by almost every administration for the last twenty 
years. This pohcy may be traced to the belief, generally 
entertained, that Texas was embraced in the cession of 
Louisiana by France, to the United States, in 1803, and was 
improperly surrendered by the Treaty of Florida, in 1819 ; 
connected with the fact, that a large portion of the territory 
lies in the Valley of the 3Iississippi, and is indispensable to 
tlie defence of a distant and important frontier. The hazard 
of a conflict of policy upon important points, between the 
United States and one of the leading European powers, since 
the recognition of Texas, has rendered the acquisition still 
more essential to their safety and welfare ; and accord- 
ingly, has increased in proportion the necessity of acqiiir- 



* 28th Congress, 2d Session, House of Representatives, Ex, Doc. 
2, p. 47. 



THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAR. 25 

The Treaty of Annexation was lost in the Senate, by a 
vote of 35 to 16 ; but when, in 1845, the mode of annexa- 
tion by Joint Resolution of the Senate and the House of Re- 
presentatives was under debate, avowals equally bold were 
made of the pro-slavery views of its warmest friends. I 
quote out of a multitude only a few of the most explicit 
declarations. 

Mr. Holmes, of South Carolina, member of the House of 
Representatives, inquired, during the discussion : * " Would 
Southern gentlemen consent to divide Texas into two States : 
one slaveholding, and one not ? — slavery to be admitted into 
the portion adjacent to the South, while free labor was con- 
fined to the portion which bordered on Mexico. Would any 
Southerner agree to this ? Would he cut off his own 
egress, and fetter the energies of the slave-holding commu- 
nity ? If any Southern man assented to such a proposition, 
he must be either a fool or a knave : a fool, not to perceive 
its bearing ; and a knave, if perceiving it he did not resist 

it." ^ 

Ml'. Merrick, of Maryland, said in the Senate : f " The 
domestic tranquillity of the country is endangered, and if 
you reject Texas now for reasons such as these, think you 
that the South will sit down quietly under it ? Will the 
spirit of abolition cease to goad and war upon the sensitive 
interest of the South ? And to what must its assaults inev- 
itably lead ? We are now in a minority in both houses of 
Congress, in point of fact, on this question. Restore the 
balance of power, and all will be safe. The South does 
not want power to encroach upon the North ; no one dreads 
or thinks of that. But we need power to defend and pro- 
tect ourselves. It has grown into a maxim, that the best 
security for peace is to be prepared for war. The best 
security for the South is to be able to protect herself. The 

* Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 28th Congress, 2d Session, 
p. 108. t Ibid. p. 233. 

3 



26 THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAR. 

/ balance of power once restored, abolitionists would then let 
f us alone, and this blighting agitation would die its natural 
1 death. For these reasons, sir, I am warranted in saying, 
\ that, for the purpose of preserving domestic tranquillity, we 
\ should admit Texas." 

Mr. Ashley, of Arkansas, said in the same debate in the 
Senate : * " That if Texas should not be admitted, the 
Southern States must be depopulated. It might be true, that 
the admission of Texas would change the local position of 
some of our planters ; but that was a matter very immate- 
rial, because their relation to the Union and to the govern- 
ment would stiU continue the same. All the cotton raised 
by our citizens would be raised within our own country, and 
by men having the same feelings and interests with our- 
selves." 

Mr. Johnson, of Louisiana, made these remarks : t " The 
measure was boldly opposed, in and out of Congress, on the 
ground that it woidd perpetuate slavery, and add to the 
strength and power of the Southern States. Such an oppo- 
sition, proceeding from such sources, for such pui*poses, 
had operated powerfully on his mind in favor of annex- 
ation." 

" The State he had the honor in part to represent was as 
deeply interested in the slave question as any other in the 
Union ; and could it be supposed that he could listen vn\h 
indifference to such attacks, made on the rights of property 
of its citizens, or oppose a measure calculated, in his opinion, 
to strengthen those rights, and to promote the permanent 
prosperity and glorj"^ of the nation ?" 

The Washington Union of May 23, 1845, quoted with 
approbation the words of an American, who had lately been 
in Texas, and who congratulated the editors on the success 

* Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 28th Congress, 2d Session, 
p. 287. 

t Ibid. p. 224. 



THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAR. 27 

of annexation, " as giving the South so national a guaranty 
against the folly of the abolitionists." 

So far, then, as the Annexation of Texas involved us in 
difficulties with our neighbors, or was a prehminary to open 
war, so far is the institution of slavery in our country impli- 
cated in the same unhappy results. For that the latter was 
an actuating motive to effect the former, is expUcitly stated 
in the above plain declarations, which we might multiply 
indefinitely. We are not now pronouncing upon the fitness 
or unfitness of such a connection, but we simply state it as 
a fact, that is substantiated by the best authority. To have 
omitted this piece of history, in chapters on the antecedent 
circumstances and causes of the Mexican War, would be, to 
use the illustration of another, as absurd as " acting the play 
of Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet omitted." 

But the institution in question has not only been acces- 
sory to the war through annexation, but it also acted directly 
to prolong it, in furtherance of its own ulterior purposes. 
Let us call some trust-worthy witnesses to the stand. 

The Charleston Courier speaks thus : * " Besides, every 
battle fought in Mexico, and every dollar spent there, 
but insures the acquisition of territory, which must widen 
the field of Southern enterprise and power in the future; 
and the final result will be to readjust the whole balance of 
power in the confederacy, so as to give us control over the 
operations of the government in aU time to come. If the 
South be true to themselves, the day of our depression is 
gone, and gone forever." 

In a debate in Congress, upon a bill introduced by Mr. 
Preston King, but not passed, that slavery should be ex- 
cluded from the territory that might be acquired from Mex- 
ico, Mr. Hilliard, of Alabama, said : f " That gentlemen 
transcended the rules Avhich should govern them here; if 

* Moody's Facts, p. 124. t Ibid. p. 126. 



28 THE CHIEF MOTIVE OP THE WAR. 

thej proceeded, ihej would rouse a. feeling at tlie South 
that would rend the bonds of this Union, as Sampson burst 
the withes that bound him. Was this the doctrine that was 
to be acted on, — that, acquire what territory we might, free 
labor might be suffered to go there, but the men of the 
South should not take their slaves with them there ? If this 
thing was to be done, this government would be unequal, and 
its days would be numbered.** 

Mr. Dargan, from the same State, also said:* "What 
would be thought by the volunteers from the South, when it 
was announced to them that slavery was to be excluded 
from the territory, their arms had acquired ? This question 
must be settled before we proceed to acquire more territory, 
for afterwards it will be too late." 

***** 
" Say to the South, that they are only fighting to make 
free territory, that it is only for this that the brave men of 
Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, are periling their lives, 
and they will demand the settlement of this question now, 
preliminary to any further prosecution of the war." 

Mr. Sims, of South Carolina, in a speech in the House of 
Representatives, Jan. 28, 1847: "And I have no doubt, — I 
express the opinion here, — that every foot of territory we 
shall permanently occupy south of thirty-six degrees thirty 
minutes, will be slave territory." In reply to a question by 
Mr. Burt, whether it would be in consequence of the state 
of public opinion in the Northern, Western, or Middle 
States ? or whether it was (would be) in consequence of 
the known determination of the Southern people, that their 
institutions shall be carried into that country, if acquired? 
Mr. Sims answered : " It is founded on the known determin- 
ation of the Southern people, that their institutions shall be 
carried there ; it is founded on the laws of God, written on 

* Moody's Facts, pp. 126. 127. 



THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAR. 29 

the climate and soil of the country ; nothing but slave labor 
can cultivate profitably that region of country. I have no 
idea that the North or the West will resist to the death. 
This Union never will be dissolved on that question." 

I^Ir. Roberts, of Mississippi, demanded in the House of 
Representatives, Feb. 4, 1847 : * " And are we to tell a 
Butler, a Quitman, a Davis, a Yell, a Price, a Pillow, and a 
host of other Southern gentlemen, officers, and soldiers, who 
have bravely volunteered, and shed their blood, and dissi- 
pated their treasure, who represent millions of slave holders, 
that, after the territory that may be acquired has been pur- 
chased at so fearful a cost, they, or their mves, or their 
childi'en, or theii' friends, or relatives, shall not go upon the 
territory to possess it, people it, and cultivate it, and build 
upon it, for themselves and their childi-en ? No, sir ; they 
will tell us, and I tell you, the South will have her rights, 
come what may." 

Mr. Calhoun f in the Senate maintained, in like manner, 
the right of slave-holders to carry their slaves, and hold their 
slaves in the new territories conquered from Mexico: — 
" The case of our recently-acquired territory from Mexico, 
is, if possible, more marked. The events connected with 
the acquisition ai'e too well known to require a long nar- 
rative. It was won by arms, and a great sacrifice of men 
and money. The South, in the contest, performed her full 
share of military duty, and earned a full share of military 
honor ; has poured out her full share of blood freely, and 
has and will bear a full share of the expense ; has evinced a 
full share of skill and bravery, and if I w^ere to say even 
more than her full share of both, I would not go beyond the 
truth ; to be attributed, however, to no superiority in either 
respect, but to accidental circumstances, which gave both its 

* Printed speech, pp. 6, 7. 
t Printed speech, p. 12, June 27, 1848. 
2* 



s» 



THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE "WAR. 



officers and soldiers more favorable opportunities for their 
display. AU have done their duty nobly, and high courage 
and gallantry are but common attributes of our people. 
Would it be right and just to close a territory thus won 
against the South, and leave it open exclusively to the 
North ? Would it deserve the name of free soil, if one half 
of the Union should be excluded and the other half should 
monopolize it, when it was won by the joint expense and 
joint efforts of all ? Is the great law to be reversed, — that 
which is won by all should be equally enjoyed by all ?" 

Forcibly and unanswerably was it argued by Mr. Dix of 
New York in the Senate, Feb. 28, 1849 : * " When the war 
with Mexico was commenced, we were charged with the in- 
tention of acquiring territory with a view to carrying slaves 
into it. The charge was denied. We repelled the impu- 
tation as doing injustice to our motives. Yet, in the very 
first attempt to establish a government for that territory, 
the right is insisted upon, the purpose is confessed. Whether 
the Mexican Government was aware of this imputation, I 
do not know ; but in the negotiation with Mr. Trist, the 
Mexican commissioners wished us to stipulate not to carry 
slavery into the territory which was proposed to be ceded.f 

"These Mexicans, whom we have been accustomed to 

* Printed speech, p. 11. 

t " 13th. The United States shall compromise themselves not to 
permit slavery in the part of the territory wliich they may acquire by 
this treaty." — Preliminaries of the Mexican Covamissioners^ Aug. 24, 
1847. 

Mr. Trist, in a letter to Mr. Buchanan, Sept. 4th, mentions that this 
topic came up in discussion ; that the commissioners assured him that 
if it were proposed to the people of the United States to part with a 
portion of their territory in order that the Inquisition should be estab- 
lished in it, the proposal would not awaken greater abhorrence than 
that awakened in Mexico by the prospect that slavery would be in- 
troduced in any territory parted with by her; that he assured them 



THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE WAR. 81 

consider half-civilized, vanquished in the field, driven from 
their capital, compelled to make peace with us almost on our 
own terms, and forced to cede a portion of their territory, 
implore us not to carry slavery into it. Sir, I ask how 
should we stand before the world, liberal and enlightened as 
we are, proclaiming to mankind the principle of human lib- 
erty as one of the inalienable rights of our race, if we were 
to disregard these entreaties?" 

We deem the frank statements of Calhoun, and others, 
sufl&cient proof that the South would neither have embarked 
in nor pursued the Mexican war, had they supposed that the 
new conquests would become free territories and states. As 
this is only a review, and not a history of the war, it is suf- 
ficient to give a specimen of the large amount of docu- 
mentary evidence existing upon this subject. 

(^We are obliged, therefore, shocking as the statement is, 
and blushing for our native land as we do, while we record 
it, to declare that the paramount cause and motive of the 
war with Mexico, without doubt or controversy, was ter- 
ritorial aggrandizement, under the dominion of domestic 
slavery and the internal slave-trade. This cause, first ad- 
vocated by a few, and afterwards entangling the nation, 
severed the province of Texas from Mexico, and annexed it 
to the United States. This cause carried the sword in its 
devastating career from Palo Alto to Buena Vista, and from 
Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico. War has, in former 
times, made slaves of its captives ; but it reserved to this 
advanced period of the world its chief exploit of seeking to 

that he did not differ with them probably on shivery, considered in it- 
self, but that they had erroneous impressions of slavery as it existed 
in the United States, and that he could not accept the new territory on 
condition that slavery was excluded, not if its value were increased 
tenfold, " and, in addition to that, covered a foot thick all over toith pure 
gold:' The topic was dropped. 30th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, 
Ex. Doc, 52. pp. 199, 315. 



32 PRETEXTS FOR WAR. 

convert the land of freedom, wliieh it had conquered, into 
the area of slavery, and of spreading over new parallels of 
latitude the blight of national injustice and eternal wretch- 
edness. 



CHAPTER IV. 

PRETEXTS FOR VTAR. 



" I believe that if the question had been put to Congress before the 
march of the armies and their actual conflict, not ten votes could have 
been obtained in either house for the war with Mexico under the ex- 
isting state of things." — Webster. 

The chief motive to tliis war, however it might be in- 
cidentally dropped by incautious lips or pens in the ardor 
of debate, or in the anonymous newspaper article, was yet 
too culpable to be openly avowed in the documents of a 
republican government. More plausible reasons were as- 
signed. The United States were represented as the mjured 
and insulted party. The war was claimed to be a war of 
self-defence. The vindication of national rights and honor 
was loudly insisted on, and a spectator might have supposed 
that our existence as a people was in danger, and that no- 
thing but the most energetic measures could avert the im- 
pending ruin. But we find, now the smoke has cleared 
away, and the excitement is over, and we can view things 
calmly and considerately, that what were alleged as reasons 
for the war with Mexico, prove to have been but windy 
pretences. • Many patriotic and good men of all parties in 
the United States, did not at the time regard them as worthy 



PRETEXTS FOR WAR. 33 

causes of such fearful consequences. They received the 
pointed censure of the wisest and best in the freest countries 
of Europe. They were soon weighed in the balances, and 
found wanting, by the votes and voices of a majority of the 
popular branch of the American Legislature. They were 
divested of most of their plausibility by the progress of the 
war, the conditions on which peace was made, and the 
revelations of subsequent political history; and they now 
stand in the judgment of impartial history convicted, con- 
demned, and sentenced to go to " their own place." 

The first, in order of time and importance, of these pre- 
texts for war, was the non-fulfilment by Mexico of her 
agreement to indemnify the citizens of the United States for 
wrongs inflicted upon their business and commerce. 

The subject is elsewhere considered in other connections 
in this review, but the following condensed statement by the 
venerable Albert Gallatin, will afiford all the necessary in- 
formation to make our argument intelligible : — 

" It may be proper, in the first place, to observe, that the 
refusal of doing justice in cases of this kind, or the long 
delays in providing for them, have not generally produced 
actual war. Almost always, long-protracted negotiations 
have been alone resorted to. This has been strikingly the 
case with the United States. The claims of Great Britain 
for British debts, secured by the treaty of 1783, were not 
settled and paid till the year 1803; and it was only subse- 
quently to that year that the claims of the United States, 
for depredations committed in 1793, were satisfied. The 
very plain question of slaves carried away by the British 
forces in 1815, in open violation of the treaty of 1814, was 
not settled and the indemnity paid till the year 1826. The 
claims against France, for depredations committed in the 
years 1806 to 1813, were not settled and paid for till the 
year 1834. In all these cases peace was preserved by 
patience and forbearance. 



34 PRETEXTS FOR WAR. 

"With respect to the Mexican indeBinities, the subject 
had been laid more tlian once before Congress, not without 
suggestions that sti'ong measures should be resorted to. 
But Congress, in whom alone is invested the power of de- 
claring war, uniformly declined doing it. 

"A convention was entered into on the 11th of April, 
1839, between the United States and Mexico, by virtue of 
which a joint commission was appointed for the examination 
and settlement of those claims. The powers of the com- 
missionei-s terminated, according to the convention, in Feb- 
ruary, 1842. The total amount of the American claims 
presented to the commission, amounted to $ G,291,60o. Of 
these, $2,02G,140 were allowed by the commission; a fur- 
ther sum of $928,628 was allowed by the commissioners of 
the United States, rejected by the Mexican commissioners, 
and left undecided by the umpire ; and claims amounting to 
$3,330,837 had not been examined. 

" A new convention, dated January 30, 1843, granted to 
the Mexicans a further delay for the payment of the claims 
which had been admitted, by virtue of which the interest 
due to the claimants was made payable on the 30th of April, 
1843, and the principal of the awards and the interest ac- 
cruing thereon, was stipulated to be paid in five years, in 
twenty equal instalments every three months. The claim- 
ants received the interest on the 30th of April, 1843, and 
the three instalments. The agent of the United States, 
having, under peculiar circumstances, given a receipt for 
the instalments due in April and July, 1844, before they 
had been actually paid by Mexico, the payment has been 
assumed by the United States and discharged to the claim- 
ants. 

"A third convention Avas concluded at Mexico on the 
20th of November, 1843, by the pleniix)tentiaries of the two 
governments, by which provision was made for ascertaining 
and paying the claims on which no final decision had been 



PRETEXTS FOR WAR. 35 

made. In January, 1844, this convention was ratified by 
the Senate of the United States, with two amendments, 
which were referred to the Government of Mexico, but re- 
specting which no answer has ever been made. On the 
12th of April, 1844, a treaty was concluded by the Presi- 
dent with Texas, for the annexation of that republic to the 
United States. This treaty, though not ratified by the 
Senate, placed the two countries in a new position, and 
arrested for a while all negotiations. It was only on the 1st 
of March, 1845, that Congress passed a joint resolution for 
the annexation. 

" It appears most clearly that the United States are justly 
entitled to a full indemnity for the injuries done to their 
citizens ; that, before the annexation of Texas, there was 
every prospect of securing that indemnity ; and that those 
injuries, even if they had been a just cause for war, were in 
no shape whatever the cause of that in which we are now in- 
volved."* 

Thus far Mr. Gallatin ; from which, and from other gen- 
eral knowledge on the subject, no doubt possessed by our 
readers, we come to the following conclusions : — 

1. That the claims made by us on other nations, though 
long refused, were not deemed sufficient causes of war. 

2. That Congress, the proper war-making power, had re- 
peatedly declined resorting to arms to collect these debts of 
Mexico. 

3. That, on the whole, the conduct of Mexico, considering 
her disordered condition, would, upon the question of indem- 
nities, compare not unfavorably with that of England and 
France. 

4. That the annexation of Texas was the cliief cause of 
the non-fulfilment of her engagements by Mexico. 

5. That the large amount of claims preferred, and the 

* Peace with Mexico, p. 2, 



36 PRETEXTS FOR WAR. 

mnch smaller amount allowed by the umpire, leads to the 
strongest conviction that many of them were fraudulent, an 
inference fully sustained by an examination of them indi- 
vidually as published in the reports and documents of the 
time.* 

6. That, although these difficulties were assigned as the 
eause or excuse for war, subsequently, yet at first, both in 
the documents of the Executive and the legislative branch 
of the Government, no explicit declaration was made, when 
war was declared, of the indebtedness of Mexico to the 
United States as a bond fide reason for fighting. 

The next pretext was the refusal by Mexico, in 1845-6, 
to receive Mr. Slidell as Envoy Extraordinary and IVIinister 
Plenipotentiary, to reside in that Repubhc. The whole 
history of that affair is recorded in the journals of the day, 
and the documents of Government, and need not be tedious- 
ly repeated here. The main facts are these, and they are 
not disputed by any party. After the passage of the joint 
resolution for the annexation of Texas, in March, 1845, 
Almonte, the Mexican ISIinister at Washington, demanded 
his passports and returned home. In September, the Pres- 
ident of the United States made proposals for restoring a 
cordial understanding between the two countries. The 
Mexican Government replied that they felt deeply injured, 
but would receive a commissioner to "settle the present 
dispute," referring to the Texas question, provided the naval 
forces, placed in a menacing attitude in sight of Vera Cruz, 
were recalled. This was done by the United States. Mr. 
Slidell, of Louisiana, was appointed Envoy Extraordinary 
and Minister Plenipotentiary. He arrived in the city of 
Mexico Dec. 6, 1845, and left the country about the 1st of 
April, 1846. He was not recognized by the Mexican Gov- 
ernment, as was alleged on their part, because he came as a 

* 27th Congress, 2nd Session, Executive Documents, No. 21. 



PRETEXTS FOR WAR. 37 

resident Minister, and not as a Commissioner.* But a change 
of the national administration from the hands of the pacific 
Herrera to those of the warlike Pai-edes, wliich occurred in 
the interim, was a great obstacle to the success of his mis- 
sion. 

By a comparison of dates, however, it will be found that 
the American Minister was not finally rejected until after 
the gates of war were thrown open by the order to Gen. 
Taylor to take his position of offence on the east bank of the 
Rio Grande. 

Mr. Slidell wrote home,t Dec. 27, 1845, that on the 21st 
of that month he had "received from Pena y Pena his 
promised reply, conveying the formal and unqualified re- 
fusal of the Mexican Government to receive me in the 
character for which I am commissioned." This letter was 
not received by the authorities at Washington, until Jan. 
23, 1846, and, therefore, could not have been the basis of the 
order of Jan. 13th, ten days before, ordering Gen. Taylor 
to invade the disputed territory on the Rio Grande. Mr. 
Buchanan states expHcitly in a letter to Mr. Slidell, of Jan. 
28, 1846, that his despatches of the 27th and 29th of Decem- 
ber were received on the 23d i?istant. I 

But Herrera's power was overturned, and Paredes came 
to the head of affairs on Jan. 3, 1846. Still, there was hope 
even with the new warlike administration, of negotiating a 
treaty. On March 1st, Mr. Slidell, at Jalapa, had letters 
from the city of Mexico, which spoke " confidently of Ms 
reception,"^ and gave information of it to the Department 

* 30th Congress. 1st Session, House of Representatives, Executive 
Documents, No. 60 : " The delay has arisen solely from certain diffi- 
culties occasioned by the nature of the credentials." See the Letter of 
Pena y Pena to Mr. Slidell, Dec. 16, 1845, See his letter also to the 
Mexican Council, Dec. 11, 1845. 

t 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Executive 
Documents, No. 60, p. 32. 

t Ibid. p. 54. § Ibid. p. 62. 

4 



38 PRETEXTS FOR WAR. 

at Washington. Meanwiiile, the Union, the official organ^ 
had said, on Feb. 10, 1846, that letters had been received to 
the 14th of January from Mr. Shdell; that he had not then 
" been received by the Government in his official capacity ; 
neither had they declined his reception.'' 

On March 12th, Mr. Buchanan wrote to ISIr. Slidell, "I 
am directed by the President to instruct you not to leave that 
JRepublic until you shall have made a formal demand to be 
received by the new government."* 

On the 14th of January, Mr. Slidell had stated that his 
notes to Mr. Pena y Pena had " not yet been considered ;" 
and he spoke of the new minister of foreign relations as one 
whom he knew at heart to be " decidedly favorable to an 
amicable adjustment of all questions pending between the 
two governments." f 

. And it was not till March 18th, J more than two months 
after the virtual war-order of Jan. 13th, that the American 
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary wrote 
home that he had received his decided rejection by the 
Paredes Government, and that he had demanded his pass- 
ports. On that very day Gen. Taylor dated his despatch to 
the War Department,§ at " El Sauce, 119 miles from Corpus 
Christi," and, of course, thus far into a disputed territory, as 
much as that on the north-eastern boundary in debate a few 
years before, between England and the United States, or 
that portion between 49° and 54° 40' on the Pacific slope, 
negotiated in 1845-6. 

The warlike movements of the United States are seen by 
these letters to have been pushed forward independently of 
the reception or the rejection of ^Ir. Slidell. If the defeat 
of his mission was a real cause of war, and not a pretext, an 
afterthought, used to justify what had been already done, 

* 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Executive 
Documents, No. 60, p. 64. t Ibid. p. 50. 

J Ibid. p. 66. § Ibid. p. 123. 



PRETEXTS FOR WAR. 39 

the course of modesty would at least have dictated that the 
onset to arms should not be sounded until the JMinister had 
been able to leave the country, and the Executive had time 
to lay the matter before Congress to decide the question of 
peace or war. 

The Christian mode of proceeding cannot he better stated 
than in the words of Mr. Gallatin : " Yet, when Mexico re- 
fused to receive JVIi-. Slidell as an Envoy Extraordinary and 
Minister Plenipotentiary, the United States should have 
remembered that we had been the aggressors ; that we 
had committed an act acknowledged, as well by the prac- 
tical law of nations as by common sense and common jus- 
tice, to be tantamount to a declaration of war; and they 
should have waited with patience till the feelings excited 
by our own conduct had subsided."* 

The conclusions are, therefore, 

1. That the refusal to receive an Envoy is not, according 
to the law of nations, a just cause of war, until at least every 
rational appeal has been exhausted. 

2. That the movements of the American army that led to 
the spilling of blood, were ordered without special reference 
to the mission in Mexico. 

3. That, in case the refusal to receive Mr. Slidell were 
grave cause enough to involve two great nations in war, the 
question should have been submitted to the decision of the 
Congress of the United States, then in session, and author- 
ized by the Constitution to decide precisely such questions. 

The final and immediate reason assigned at the beginning 
of the war was, that " Mexico has passed the boundary of 
the United States, has invaded our territory, and shed Amer- 
ican blood upon the American soil." How amply this rea- 
son, when closely investigated, bears the character of a pre- 
text, will be shown in detail in chapters seventh and eighth, 
to which we refer our readers on the question of boundary. 

* Peace with Mexico, p. 5. 



40 PREPARAIJION OP WAR. 



CHAPTER V. 

PREPARATION OF WAR. 

" No, Sir ; if we would awaken the desire for peace in the bosom of 
England, — if we would render America invincible in battle, — we must 
prepare the heart of the nation for the defence of its rights and its honor, 
by honestly telling the people the real state of the facts, and by giving 
them the reason for the measures we adopt." — Mr. Allen, in Senate 
of the U. S. Dec. 16, 1845. 

It was reserved to our day to witness the change of the 
popular maxim, "«*« time of peace prepare for war" into 
another rule, of even more questionable moraUty, " in 
time of peace prepare war." But, from a careful exam- 
ination of the documents relating to the Annexation of 
Texas, and its consequences, and of the leading newspapers 
of the time, and the means used to act upon the public mind 
before the war broke out, we cannot avoid the conclusion, 
that a conflict with Mexico was early anticipated, desired, 
and prepared for, by those who understood but too well how 
easily the war spirit could be kindled in the heart of the 
nation. The reasons assigned for the war were but pre- 
tences, covering ulterior designs, which it would not do at 
once to disclose ; but which have, in due succession, all come 
out, and now stand in their naked deformity before the 
world : Conquest, Dismemberment, Annexation of new ter- 
ritories, the extension of Slavery, the domestic Slave Trade, 
and the Slave Power. A distinguished statesman, with 
equal truth and severity, characterized the war as a " war 
of pretexts." What can prevent it from occupying that posi- 
tion on the pages of candid and impartial history ? 



PREPARATION OP WAR. 41 

To show that we speak not " without book " on this sub- 
ject, let us investigate some of the means by which the ball 
was set in motion, and the pretences by which its crushing 
progress was justified after it began to roll. 

From the moment that Texas was virtually annexed, in 
March, 1845, the clang of arms resounded through the West 
and South West. We have already seen that politicians of 
opposite parties declared the identity of annexation and war. 
But war did not immediately ensue ; and, weak and dis- 
tracted as Mexico was, there was no immediate Ukelihood of 
its occurrence. Time might heal the Avound. A pacific 
administration was in power in that republic, and much was 
to be hoped from a conciliatory policy. Such were the views 
and feelings, now on record, of many of the friends of an- 
nexation, as well as of its determined opponents. 

But other counsels prevailed. An endeavor seemed forth- 
with to be made, to irritate, rather than to tranquillize, our 
neighbors. The frontiers southward bristled with arms. In 
1844, when the Treaty of Annexation was under considera- 
tion, assurances had been made to the Texan authorities, by 
the United States,* that, during the negotiation and settle- 
ment of difficulties, Texas should be defended by the naval 
and military forces of this republic, in case they conceived 
Mexico had any serious intention of invasion, and the 
pledges were reJeemed.f But, in 1845, the tone began to 
change from defence to offence. As soon as the Joint Reso- 
lutions were accepted by the Texan Legislature, and before 
the measure of annexation could be perfected, steps were 
taken on the part of Texas to receive, and on the part of 
the United States to send troops, ostensibly to ward off 

* Ml-. Houston's speech in the U. S. Senate, Feb. 19, 1847. Also, 
his Letter to the Tfxas Banner^ July 18, 1847. 

t See Pres. Tyler's Message to the Senate, May 15, 1844, with the 
accompanying Documents, 28th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, 341, 
pp. 82 and following. 

4* 



42 PREPARATION OF WAR. 

attacks from Mexico. A formidable naTal force, of nine 
war-ships, was placed in the Gulf; a squadron was de- 
spatched to the Pacific coast ; an expedition, professedly sci- 
entific in its aims, but found capable, afterwards, of being 
converted into a hostile instrument, was equipped for Cali- 
fornia and Oregon, and applications to enter it were more 
numerous than could be received.* In a word, all the ele- 
ments began to muster their tempestuous powers, and brew 
the hurricane. 

At this critical moment, the press, mighty engine for weal 
or woe, interposed but too often its vast influence, to fire the 
warlike passions in our countrymen. In the summer of 
1845, no less than thi-ee long series of essays appeared in 
the organ of the national administration, relative to our diffi- 
culties with Mexico, and characterized by a belligerent tone 
of thought and feehng. The distant valley of the West was 
agitated by " rumors of wars." Texas already snuffed the 
coming storm. Unusual activity reigned in the barracks, 
forts, and navy yards of the country. The signs of the 
times were not to be mistaken ; and the wonder now is, that, 
with all the preparations that were made for war, during the 
year 1845, any body should have been taken by surprise 
when it came, in 1846. They who had watched the filling 
of the magazine were not startled, when the spark was ap- 
plied, to witness its explosion. 

The following paragraphs, from various journals of that 
period, will show the temper of the times; and, when we 
consider that the newspaper press has an almost boundless 
power, both in creating and expressing public opinion in the 
United States, can we hesitate to believe, since effects must 
have a cause, that such sentences as these, read, copied, 
caught up by ardent temperaments, repeated from mouth 
to mouth, did not a little to precipitate the collision of 
arms? 

* Tlie Washington Utiion, June 14, 1845. 



PREPARATION OF WAR. 43 

The Harrisburg (Pa.) Union, April, 1845, has these re- 
marks on " our Foreign relations : " " Mexico, pronuncia- 
mento-lowing Mexico, threatens the United States with all 
sorts of perils short of actual war, if the President executes 
a solemn act of Congress, and the expressed will of his 
constituents. We pity Mexico, torn as she is by domestic 
factions, whose sole object is to rob its poor and suffering 
people ; but when she talks of war with a friendly nation, 
which has spared her on former occasions, we cannot help 
looking at her situation and resources, and recollecting how 
tempting it is to be invited by aggression to conquer her ter- 
ritory, and free her enslaved population from their petty ty- 
rants. 

***** 

" The ports of Mexico on the Gulf, Tampico and Vera 
Cruz, can be closed by our cruisers in a few days' sail. Her 
harbors on the Pacific are open and defenceless, and an 
army marching from Texas would be paid in its rout by the 
silver mines scattered along its path, and the gold, jewels, 
and silver of the city of Montezuma, would reward its ad- 
venturous assailants, while it paid the debt of its conquest. 
The settlers of Oregon would take permanent possession of 
the Califomias, which would thus be added to our territory 
on the shores of the South sea. 

" Let Mexico therefore beware how far she tempts us by 
insolent and threatening language." 

The Daily Union at Washington, May 10, 1845, has the 
following: "The Government of the United States has 
been compelled in consequence of the hostile demonstrations 
on the part of Mexico, to despatch a powerful squadi'on to 
the Gulf, prepared to prevent or resist any warlike move- 
ments. The naval force in the Pacific is, of course, appriz- 
ed of the posture of affairs. Troops have been assembled 
on our Southern frontier, ready to act as circumstances may 
demand. 



44 PREPARATION OP WAR. 

" These proceedings, however, are purely and exclusively 
defensive. Unless Mexico should commence hostilities, 
nothing will be attempted on our side." 

The Daily Union, May 14, 1845, has an extract from a 
private letter from New Orleans : " Are we going to have 
war or not (with Mexico) . . . War is all the talk here, as 
you may readily conceive. There are many brave fellows 
among us who are anxious to show their mettle." Continues 
the Union in comment, — " Sound but the trumpet, and there 
would pour volunteers enough from the valley of the Mis- 
sissippi alone, to overrun Mexico, and subdue Cahfornia. 
There would scarcely be wanting a single regular soldier 
to form the nucleus of twenty-thousand volunteers." 

The Nashville Union of May 24th, quoted in the Washing- 
ton Union of May 31, 1845, discourses thus: "Mexico 
may declare war, but that will not dissolve the bonds of an- 
nexation ; it may result in additional annexation ; and that 
view of the case deserves to be well weighed in Mexico be- 
fore war is resorted to. In such a war, it will be found that 
annexation will be sustained by AVTiigs as well as Demo- 
crats." 

Correspondent C. in Art. 14th, on Mexico, in the Union 
May 28th, says : " The other nations of the earth, must either 
exclude her from the rank which she claims among them, 
or must compel her to observe those laws of the government 
to which they voluntarily and cheerfully submit. We have 
seen, that by a timely resort to those measures of coercion 
which the circumstances of the case rendered necessary, 
France and England have compelled her to redress the 
wrongs which she had perpetrated, and to obey that law 
which she had violated. Were this course universally 
adopted, Mexico herself would grow richer and happier as 
well as better." 

The Union of June 2d, predicts, — " The march of the 
Anglo Saxon race is onward. They must in the end accom- 



PREPARATION OF WAR. 45 

plish their destiny — spreading far and wide the great prin- 
ciple of self-government ; and who shall say how far they 
will prosecute the work ? 

" We infinitely prefer the friendly settlement of the great 
question now pending. It will secure the peace and welfare 
of the Mexican nation. It can now be done, and it should 
now be accomplished. For who can aiTCst the torrent that 
will pour onward to the West ? The road to California will 
be open to us. Who will stay the march of our Western 
people ? Our Northern brethren, also, are looking toward 
that inviting region, with much more interest than those of 
the South. They, too, will raise the cry of Westward, ho ! 
However strongly many of them may now oppose annexa- 
tion, yet, let California be thrown open to their ambition, 
and the torrent even of their population will roll westwai'dly 
to the Pacific." 

Some papers lifted up a warning voice against this war- 
cry. Thus the Cincinnati Gazette, in reference to the last 
article, justly remarks : " We feel, as we fear, the spirit of 
the article in The Union, It bodes no good ; it is evil. Ho ! 
Westward! Halls of the Montezumas, and the mines of 
Mexico, would start into being 20,000 volunteers I Ay, so 
it would. What then ? Why, in this valley, teeming with 
life, a spirit of aggrandizement, — of mad and maddening 
excitement, — of a selfish and burning thirst of power, — of 
military excitement, — of conquest, in its worst and most 
detestable form, — would rule as a master tyrant, sweeping 
all before it, and, as sure as it lives, desolating the hope of 
the virtuous and the free. Let all parties shun this spirit as 
they would dishonor. Let the country smite it down in its 
early manhood, ere that manhood be smitten unto death, by 
its foul and degrading breath." 

The Houstoji Star, of May 24, 1845, says: "We are 
happy to state here, that arrangements have been made to 
obtain accurate information of the movements of the Mex- 



46 PREPARATION OP WAR. 

ican forces ; and it is believed that our government will be 
prepared to repel any incursions of Mexican troops into the 
disputed territory (previously stated to be the territory 
* West of the Nueces.' ") 

The Washington Union, of June 11th, advises that "the 
Texans themselves should collect their own volunteers, and 
march to repel the Mexicans from their borders. If the 
troops of Mexico have crossed the Rio Grande, it would be 
better for Texas to clear her own confines at once, than wait 
for the movements of our regulars. We hazard nothing in 
saying that such, too, would be the decided preference of our 
own government. We had understood, indeed, that such was 
also the determination of the Texans, if the Mexicans should 
be found hovering in the country between the Rio Grande 
and the Nueces. We do not mean to say, that if the Texans 
should be found wanting to themselves, we should suffer a 
hostile foot to tread her legitimate soil, as soon as her Con- 
gress and her Convention have ratified our propositions." 

The New Orleans Picayune, of June 7th, says : " We have 
received intelligence, by this arrival, to the effect, that the 
Mexicans are really concentrating a large force on the Rio 
Grande, preparatory to war, in case Texas should agree to 
Annexation. Our informant states, further, that the feeling 
in the latter country is thoroughly warlike ; the talk is of 
nothing else than a brush with Mexico, if she wishes it." 

The Union, of June 23d, confesses : " We are for peace, 
but it must be an honorable peace. We are for war, if the 
rights and honor of our country demand it. This is our true 
position." 

Otsego, a correspondent in The Union, of June 9th, writes : 
" Ten years ago, our country rang with applause of the 
heroes of San Jacinto. It was a New Orleans victory, so 
far as Texas was concerned, and was universally regarded as 
a successful termination of the brief but glorious contest she 
had wased for national freedom." 



PREPARATION OP WAR. 47 

"In spite of the active exertions of its opponents, open 
or disguised, it is hardly a figure of speech to say, that An- 
nexation is a thing of the past. Its substance was obtained in 
the determination of the Texan people. They are about to 
supply the forms^ when this great American question will pro- 
ceed steadily, and, it is hoped and believed, peacefully, to its 
fulfilment. Yet, this may not be. Madness is sometimes 
inflicted upon nations, as upon man ; and, if it be true that 
the Deity, in his inscrutable wisdom, first dements the people 
whom he would destroy, it may be that the time is not dis- 
tant, when the banner of freedom will float on her hill tops, 
and the Plaza of Mexico be the camping ground of an Ame- 
rican army." 

The Neio Orlecms Picayune, of June 24th, says : " We 
heai'd notliing of the rumor ourselves, (that the government 
had ordered all the troops on the Sabine to advance upon 
the Rio Grande, to repel the menaced irruption of the Mex- 
icans upon the territory of Texas,) but we must say that we 
had rather see our troops marching toAvards the Rio Grande, 
than to any other quarter of the habitable world." 

Mr. Shannon, who had just returned from Mexico, where 
he had been Minister Plenipotentiary, in a letter of July 2d, 
to Mr. Buchanan, Secretary of State, writes : " While it 
may be expected that these drafts (the ones that had not yet 
been honored by the Mexican government, and that included 
two instalments, amounting to $275,000) ivill be paid hy Mex- 
ico, so soon as her Jlnancial abilities will enable her to do so, 
without regard to the future relations of the two countries, 
I do not feel justified in giving you any assurance that the 
remaining instalments will be paid, until the difliculties exist- 
ing between the two countries are finally adjusted, or our 
government shall adopt strong measures, in order to coerce 
Mexico into a compliance with her treaty stipulations." 

The Union, of July 18th, quotes from the Missouri Exposi- 
tor, an extract from a letter dated at Taos, New Mexico : 



48 PREPARATION OF WAR. 

"The glorious spirit of Annexation is spreading, like a 
prairie-fire up the E-io del Norte, and rattling the dried 
bones in New Mexico. * * * 

" Both Americans and Mexicans are making large pur- 
chases of land upon the streams runnmg into the Rio del 
Norte and Arkansas, and anticipating Annexation. Ex- 
Govenaor Ai-mijo is stirring up and concentrating around 
him the means of ejecting Mexican domination, and will 
shortly succeed in so doing." 

A plan of the war is sketched m a communication to the 
Union of Aug. 1 6th : " 4,000 militia and 2,000 regulars in 
Texas, 2,000 militia and 1,500 regulars in other parts of 
XJ. S. 9,500 regulars, 25,000 volunteers, = 34,500. With 
these begin the forward march. Go a-head! the woid, and 
prudence and watchfulness to guide. Pass the Rio Grande. 
Leave a military force to maintain the captured places in 
Mexico, and keep up our Ime of communication with our 
base of operations, and with 30,000 men advance direct 
upon Mexico. Vera Cruz should be taken," etc. 

In this same month of August, 1845, Major-Gen. Gaines 
made a requisition on the Governor of Louisiana, without 
any orders, it was said, from the Secretary of War, for 2,000 
men, and the troops were received and sent on to the fron- 
tiers. The military spirit was rampant in the capital of the 
Mississippi Valley. The War Department of the United 
States was put in a state of unusual activity ; arms were 
made ready and despatched even on the sacred day of rest ; 
ships of war were refitted, manned, and commissioned, and 
all was made ready. Gen. Gaines reviewed the troops in 
New Orleans on Sunday. Gen. Patterson, of Philadelphia, 
came to Washington to offer his services to the President, to 
raise 6,000 volunteers. Hon. R. M. Johnson, ex Vice-Pres- 
ident of the United States, in a letter to the President, dated 
Aug. 25th, offered himself and the brave Kentuckians for the 
cause. Are not all these things faithfully recorded in the 



PREPARATION OF WAR. 49 

chronicles of that period ? and are they not significant facts 
in the history of this war ? The movements of Gen. Taylor 
to Corpus Christi were eagerly copied into all the journals. 
The Oregon discussion kept up an excitement during the 
session of Congress, 1845-6, favorable to warlike prepar- 
ations, and training the people to be familiar with the idea 
of a resort to arms. The cry had been loud, " All of Oregon 
or none ; now or never ; fifty-four forty, or fight ;" and all 
this inflammatory patriotism was easily turned, when the 
occasion served, into another channel, and the sword drawn 
against Mexico instead of England. The conflict burst upon 
the country suddenly, at last, and took many by surprise ; 
but had they watched the course of public affairs more 
closely, they would have anticipated from such causes as 
had been diligently set in operation, the very results which 
followed. The eft'ect on Mexico of these warlike rumors 
and preparations, is well described in the following article : 

The Union of Jan. 12, 1846, says, "Extracts from the 
papers of Matamoras, published in the Vera Crusano, speak 
of incursions of the American troops, of detachments of par- 
ties of forty or fifty soldiers, reconnoitering and spying out the 
land The position and movements of the United States' 
troops at Corpus Christi, ever since Gen. Taylor has been 
there, have excited much alarm, fear, and jealousy, in the 
minds of the Mexicans. They seem to be hourly expecting 
that the United States' troops are about to march upon 
Matamoras, to seize upon that place, and thence, perhaps, to 
march to capture some others of their cities." 

The state of feehng, too, in the United States, among great, 
numbers of the people, was, probably, but too correctly 
represented in the two sentences below, emanating from 
two great commercial and political cities. 

The Neio Orleans Picayune of January, 1846, says, "Be 
the result of the rebellion {pronunciamento of Paredes) what 

5 



60 PREPARATION OF THE WAR. 

it may, it seems to us that our relations with Mexico should 
not be longer kept in a state of doubtful peace." 

The Neio York Courier, of the same date, said, " We hope 
that our Government will promptly force our Mexican 
affairs to a crisis." 

With this development of the spirit of conquest in the 
heart of the American people, with the extended means 
which had been put in readiness by land and sea to carry 
on war, and with the press from almost all quarters sounding 
the watchword of battle, we are astonished not that the 
crisis of blood came so unexpectedly, but that it was so long 
delayed. 

There were certain causes assigned for the war, as the 
old question of claims, and the new one of boundaries, the 
threatened invasion of an American State, and the rejection 
of our minister at Mexico ; but they have already been 
partially considered. They were, however, better called 
pretexts, than causes of war. They cloaked the designs of 
ambition. They were ready stimulants to national pride in 
the hands of expert moulders of public opinion. But the 
real circumstances that predisposed our countrymen to war, 
and the deep main-spring that moved all the chief agents 
and advocates in the premises, we have already laid open. 
The steps taken to accelerate the tremendous crisis, to rouse 
millions of minds to sanguinary sentiments, and pour forth 
fire and sword upon Mexico, have been indicated in this 
chapter. Li succeeding ones, we propose to " count the 
cost " of our national pastime in arms, as it respects prop- 
erty, life, and all the elements of human prosperity and 
happiness. 



ARGUMENTS FOR TEACE. 51 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE BEGINNING AND ENDING OF THE WAR ARGUMENTS 
FOR PEACE. 

" We daily make great improvements in natural^ there is one I wish 
to see in moral, philosophy, — the discovery of a plan that would in- 
duce and oblige nations to settle their disputes without first cutting one 
another's throats. When will human nature be sufficiently improved 
to see the advantage of this ?" — Franklin. 

Although serious difficulties existed between the United 
States and Mexico previously to the advance of Gen. Tay- 
lor from the Nueces to the Rio Grande, yet no doubt war 
might have been averted, had all parties concerned been 
deeply convinced of the blessings of peace, the guilt and 
horrors of a conflict, and the necessity of finally resorting to 
negotiations, because the sword itself could settle nothing. 
We had been in as great straits before, and had come out 
of the danger without shedding one drop of human blood. 
Granted that this was a peculiarly exasperating case of 
spoliations upon our commerce ;* yet had not the United 
States a long list of grievances of this kind to adjust with 
several European powers at the close of the wars of Na- 

* Yet so late as Aug. 5, 1836, Gen. Jackson said in a letter to Gov. 
Cannon, of Tennessee, " Should Mexico insult our national flag, in- 
vade our territory, or interrupt our citizens in the lawful pursuits 
which are guarantied to them by treaty, then the Government will 
promptly repel the insult, and seek reparation for the injuiy. But it 
does not appear that offences of this kind have been committed by 
Mexico." 



52 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 

poleon, and never thought it necessaiy to make the appeal to 
brute force ? Granted that this was a case of viohited sove- 
reignty and trespass upon the rights of American citizens; 
yet we had pacifically negotiated with England, but a few 
years before, the difficult affairs growing out of the " Caro- 
line " and the " Patriot War," and the storm-cloud of danger 
was scattered. Granted that it was a case of deferred pay- 
ment of acknowledged claims ; yet France owed us more and 
longer than Mexico, and we bore and forbore ; and when, 
after long but peaceful urgency, we obtained the money, our 
burning sense of justice suddenly congealed, and we have 
not to this day paid over what we have received to the in- 
dividual claimants for damages! Granted that it was a 
most delicate and difficult question of boundary lines ; still 
we had hardly seen the ink dry on " the treaty of Washing- 
ton," and the negotiations of Oregon, by which our limits 
were adjusted on the north from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 
What but the lust of territory, and the schemes of annex- 
ation, and the purposed extension of slavery and the slave 
power, prevented the same results in our Mexican difficulties 
on the south ? As " a masterly inactivity " had averted an 
Oregon war with Great Britain, so might it have averted a 
Texas war with Mexico. Never was a finer argument sup- 
plied to the cause of peace, as demonstrating the superiority 
of her counsels to those of war, than is afforded by the 
beginning of the contest with Mexico. Never was there a 
more conclusive exhibition of the truth that what the advo- 
cates of war call "the necessity" of hostilities, is a necessity 
of their own creation, or, at least, of their own exaggeration, 
and has no reasonable foundation in national honor, rightly 
understood, or patriotism, truly felt.* 

* " Mr. Webster's admirable letter to Lord Asbburton on the subject 
of Impressment, did more to settle that question than a hundred battles 
could have done." — Dr. Dewey's Peace Addkess, May 29, 1848, 
p. 9. 



ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 53 

The contrast of our conduct towards Great Britain and 
that towards Mexico, is very mai'ked. It was said that 
" our title to the whole of Oregon was clear and unques- 
tionable," but the fleets and armies of the United States 
were not immediately despatched to take possession. The 
final decision was delayed till the next session of Congress, 
and submitted to their wisdom. It was finally settled by 
negotiation, and, notwithstanding the claim to 54° 40', the 
line of the treaty was fixed at 49°. It was conceded, on the 
other hand, that the boundaries of Texas were not " clear 
and unquestionable," but were matters of future negotiation ; 
the final ceremonies of annexation were not concluded till 
Dec. 22, 1845; but the forces of the United States had 
already taken up threatening positions in the Gulf, on the 
Pacific, and upon the Nueces ; rumors of war were rife ; and 
although Congress was in session at the time, a secret order 
was despatched to Gen. Taylor, on Jan. 13, 1846, — less 
than a month after annexation was finally adjusted, — to ad- 
vance up to the Rio Grande, into a country which the ar- 
ticles of the Joint Resolution themselves implied was debat- 
able ground. Could any key to such different measures in 
the two cases be detected in the fact that Great Britain was 
strong, and that Mexico was weak ? or, in the further fact, 
that Oregon was free territory and was not wanted, and that 
Texas was a slave State and was wanted, and wanted, too, 
up to the extreme limit to which she had ever swelled her 
revolutionary pretensions ? 

It is very true that Mexico was deeply incensed against 
us on account of the annexation of Texas, that her Minister 
called for his passports and returned home after that mea- 
sure was passed by Congress, and that the further payment 
of the claims was suspended, and that Mexico refused to 
accredit Mr. Slidell as a Resident Minister. Many states- 
men of all parties in the United States did not blame her 
indignation. A former President of the Republic of Texas 

5* 



54 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 

said in tlie Senate of the United States, tliat we " annexed 
war," when we annexed Texas. But though war might 
exist de jure in the judgment of the Mexican Government, 
since it was through the instrumentality of citizens of the 
South and West that Texan independence was secured,* 
yet war did not exist de facto. The return home of Al- 
monte, the Mexican Minister at Washington, did not neces- 
sitate the interruption of all friendly relations between the 
two countries ; witness the recent dismissal of the English 
Minister, Bulwer, from the court of Spain. No declaration 
of the final non-payment of claims, still due, had been an- 
nounced on the part of the indebted nation. Three instal- 
ments out of twenty had been punctually paid, and the 
fourth was receipted for, but not received. Mexico but 
paused to see what would be the end of these things. She 
did not reject a commissioner f empowered to settle the 
question of boundaries, but she refused a resident minister, 
as his reception would imply that the relations between the 
two countries were entirely amicable. The questions at 
issue must first be settled, and then she would be prepared 
to resume all the forms of a mutual good understanding. 

We see, therefore, by this rapid glance, that although 
there were serious irritations and recriminations between 
the pai-ties, there was no actual war ; not a sword had been 
drawn. There was still hope, that by reason and forbear- 
ance on both sides, the term " sister republics " would not 
cease to be even a figure of speech.^ Similar difiiculties 

* The language of Mr. Van Buren in his letter to Mr. Hammett, 
April 20, 1844, on the Texan question, was, "Nothing is either more 
true or more extensively known than that Texas was wrested from 
Mexico, and her independence estabhshed, through the instrumentahty 
of citizens of the United States." 

t 30th Congress, 2nd Session, House of Representatives. Executive 
Documents, No. 60, pp. 16, 17, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31. 

\ " General Worth. Has Mexico dechired war against the United 
States ? 



ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 55 

had been peacefully despatched before in our international 
history, and none presumed to doubt that the same result 
would follow now. It was the nineteenth century of the 
Christian era. The world had grown wiser and better. 
Chidstian ideas had begun to enter cabinets and congresses. 
Negotiations were more satisfactory, as well as more inno- 
cent instruments than bayonets. War was an unpopular 
game, and public opinion had joined with the higher voices 
of a Christian civilization in branding it as the master crime 
of the earth. So most men felt, wrote, and spoke. 

There appeared to be no pressing exigency that required 
an instantaneous settlement of the long-standing difficulties. 
No new invasion of Texas was seriously meditated by her 
old enemy.* Mexico had not the sinews of war. Time 
would heal her wounded honor and pride. A handsome 
bonus for the brilliant gem, plucked from her coronet, might 
be found in remitting a portion or the whole of the instal- 
ments still outstanding. We had waited with other nations 
until they had recovered their reason ; why could we not do 
the same with Mexico ? We had borne long and patiently 
with the old monarcliies of Europe, we should naturally 
treat, it might be supposed, with unusual tenderness and 
long-suffering the young republic at our side. 

But the military forces of the United States were first 

" General Vega. No 
" " General Worth. Are the two countries still at peace ? 

" General Vega. Yes. — Minutes of an Intervieiv heticeen General Worthy 
of the United States'' army, and General Vega, of the Mexican army, at 
Matamoras, March 28, 1846. 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of 
Representatives, Ex. Doc. No. 60, p. 136i 

^'■Hostilities" (still not declared war) "may now be considered as 
commenced." — General Taylor's Letter to the Department, April 26, 
1846, same Documents. 

* Mr. Kaufman, of Texas, said in the Senate, July 27, 1848, that 
" the annexation of Texas was the cause, but not the immediate or 
necessary cause, of the late war with Mexico." 



56 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 

advanced to Corpus Christi in the summer of 1845, with 
the ostensible purpose of protecting the new State of Texas.* 
Not that any imminent danger threatened. No army of 
invasion was mustering against her. At the most, only 
some windy menaces, which the sagacious estimated at their 
true value, were aimed at her security. Mexico was deeply 
engaged in her own aifairs at home. She had little time 
or means to attend to truants abroad. Revolution chased 
revolution, and leaders rose and fell on the stormy sea of 
her politics. She was in no state to wage a war of re-con- 
quest ; and we believe most firmly that it was not in her 
heart to win back her lost province at the tremendous haz- 
ard of a war with the strongest power on the western con- 
tinent. Therefore, although Dr. Channing had said in 1836, 
that " to annex Texas is to declare perpetual war with 
Mexico ;"t though Mr. Forsyth, Secretary of State, when 
the plan of annexation was proposed by Texas in 1837, had 
replied, that '' so long as Texas shall remain at war, while 
the United States are at peace with her adversary, the 
proposition of the Texan Minister Plenipotentiary (for an- 
nexation) necessarily involves the question of war Avith that 
adversary ;"J and Mr. Van Buren had written, that "we 
cannot avoid the conclusion, that the immediate annexation 
of Texas would draw after it a war with Mexico ;"§ and 
Mr. Clay, in the same year, had used the words " annex- 
ation and war with Mexico are identical ;"|| and though a 
Texan chief magistrate had, as already quoted, declared the 
same, after the deed was consummated ; yet no immediate 
acts of war did follow. Mexico did not refuse to receive a 

^ 30th Cong-ress, 2rid Session, House, of Representatives, Ex. Doa 
Kg. 60, pp. 79-93. 

t Works, vol. 2, pp. 206, 207. 

J 28th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, Xo. 341, p. 114. 

^ His Letter to Mr. Hammet, April 20, 1844. 

II Mr. Clay's Raleigh Letter. 



ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 57 

special commissioner to treat of disputed questions and 
boundaries, and we affirm what will be the eternal verity of 
history, as we believe, when we say that facts demonstrate 
there would have been no war after the erection of Texas 
into one of the States of the American Union, had Gen. 
Taylor never removed his camp from the banks of the 
Nueces to those of the Rio Grande. It was peculiarly a 
case for cool, calm deliberation, negotiation, dignified for- 
bearance, in which the greater power would lose no honor, 
but would gain much, by a temperate and conciHating course 
with the weaker one. No final door of conference was 
closed, and much was to be hoped from that healing efficacy 
of time, which soothes at once the griefs of a nation as 
those of the humblest of its citizens. 

But on the 13th of January, 1846, as before stated, the 
fatal order was issued by the American Executive, by which 
Gen. Taylor was directed to advance and occupy, with the 
troops under his command, " positions on or near the east 
bank of the Rio del Norte," as soon as it could be conven- 
iently done. How little this measure was necessary for the 
protection of Texas, or to ward off any threatened or sus- 
pected invasion, is apparent from the letters of the com- 
mander-in-chief, who was on the spot, and knew what was 
going on, written to the Secretary of War at home.* Aug. 
15, 1845, Gen. Taylor writes, "Nor do I fear that the re- 
ported concentration of troops at Matamoras is for any pur- 
pose of invasion." Aug. 20th, " Caravans of traders arrive 
occasionally from the Rio Grande, but bring no news of 
importance. They represent that there are no regular 
troops on that river, except at Matamoras, and do not seem 

* See this whole correspondence in 30th Congress, 2nd Session, 
House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. No. 60. The President said in 
his annual message, Dec. 1845, that the forces of the United States 
were in a position (on the Nueces) " to defend our own and the rights 
of Texas." Why then were they advanced to the Rio Grande ? 



58 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 

to be aware of any j^reparations for a demonstration on this 
bank of the river." Sept. 6th, " I have the honor to report 
that a confidential agent, despatched some days since to 
Matamoras, has returned, and reports that no extraordinary 
preparations are going forward there." Oct. 11th, "Re- 
cent arrivals from the Rio Grande bring no news of a dif- 
ferent aspect from what I reported in my last." Jan. 7, 
1846, " A recent scout of volunteers from San Antonio 
struck the river near Presidio, Rio Grande, and the com- 
mander reports everything quiet in that quarter." Feb. 
16th, "Many reports will doubtless reach the Department, 
giving exaggerated accounts of Mexican preparations to 
resist our advance, if not indeed to attempt an invasion of 
Texas. Such reports have been circulated even at this 
place, and owe their origin to personal interests connected 
with the stay of the army here. I trust that they wiU re- 
ceive no attention at the War Department." 

If all were thus tranquil, and hopeful of peace, why did the 
world hear that thunder-clap in a clear sky, that the Ameri- 
can army had changed their quarters 150 miles further West? 
But, to those who had fathomed the deep purpose of the 
Annexation of Texas, "the trumpet gave no uncertain 
sound," as it heralded the march over that desert prairie ; 
for its every note rang of conquest, new additions of terri- 
tory, and the expansion of Southern institutions. Is not 
this true ? and, if true, should it not now be as fearlessly 
spoken, as it was then daringly done ? We are no section- 
ists, or disunionists, or partisans ; but the truth must out, 
else it were better that every lip were cold, and every tongue 
dumb. We consider the war had virtually begun, the mo- 
ment Gen. Taylor had struck his tents at Corpus Christi. 
The door of conciliation might then be considered as shut 
and barred. The Rubicon was crossed. 

The next step in this argument for peace, drawn from the 
commencement of the war, is to consider the boundary 



ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 59 

question. Who was the aggressor? Difficulties existed, 
but not war de facto. Who applied the spark that fired the 
magazine ? On which side was war an offensive, and on 
which side a defensive act ? And here it is to be observed, 
that whichever party in such a case first assumes active hos- 
tilities, has much to answer for. It is no light matter to 
" Cry havoc ; and let slip the dogs of war." And though in 
such events both sides are always to be blamed for pushing 
their quarrels into the neighborhood of such an awful extre- 
mity, yet a peculiar guilt rests upon the invader, who strikes 
the first blow. 

It is conceded, in all quarters, that there ivas a boundary 
question between Mexico and the United States. The offi- 
cial documents, on both sides, demonstrate this fact in the 
strongest manner. The Resolutions that authorized Texas 
to annex herself to the Union, bore this fact on their face. 
The language of one was : " First, said State to be formed, 
subject to the adjustment by this Government of all ques- 
tions of hoimdary, that may arise with other governments." 
The clause " other governments," can have no reference to 
any power but Mexico ; because Texas borders upon no 
other country, except the United States, to which it was 
annexed. 

Mr. Ashley, of Arkansas, when advocating annexation in 
the United States Senate, said : * " The third (his own reso- 
lution) speaks for itself, and enables the United States to 
settle the boundary between Mexico and the United States 
jDroperly. And I will here add, that the present boundaries 
of Texas, I learn from Judge Ellis, the President of the 
Convention that formed the Constitution of Texas, and also 
a member of the first Legislature under that Constitution, 
M^ere fixed as they now are, (that is, extending to the Rio 

* Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 28th Congress, 2d Session, 
p. 288. 



60 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 

Grande,) solely and professedly with a view of having a large 
margin in the negotiation with Mexico, and not with the ex- 
pectation of retaining them as they now exist in their statute 
book." Even Texas had not yet ventured to grasp such a 
lion's share, except as an advantageous position to occupy 
when she went into negotiation. 

When the project of annexing Texas by a treaty was in 
process, Mr. Calhoun, Secretary of State, wrote to Mr. 
Green, our charge d'affaires at Mexico : " You are enjoined, 
also, by the President, to assure the Mexican Government 
that it is his desire to settle all questions between the two 
countries, which may grow out of this treaty, or any other 
cause, on the most liberal and satisfactory terms, including 
that of boundary ; and, with that view, the minister who 
has been recently appointed will be shortly sent, with ade- 
quate powers." And again, in the same letter, he says : 
" The United States have left the boundary of Texas with- 
out specification, so that what the line of boundary should 
be might be an open question, to be fairly and fully dis- 
cussed and settled, according to the rights of each, — the 
mutual interests and security of the two countries." 

Mr. Benton, and Mr. Silas Wright, of the Senate, both 
spoke and voted against the Treaty of Annexation, partly 
on this very ground of boundary. " I wash my hands," said 
the former, " of all attempts to dismember the Mexican 
Republic; by seizing her dominions in New Mexico, Chi- 
huahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas. The treaty, in all that 
relates to the boundary of the Rio Grande, is an act of un- 
paralleled outrage on Mexico. It is the seizure of two 
thousand miles of her territory, without a word of explana- 
tion with her, and by virtue of a treaty with Texas, to 
which she is no party." And he closed his speech by offer- 
ing the following resolution : " Resolved, That the incorpo- 
ration of the left bank of the Rio del Norte into the Amen- 
can Union, by virtue of a treaty with Texas, comprehend- 



ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 61 

ing, as the said incorporation would do, a portion of the 
Mexican departments of New Mexico, Chihuahua, Coahuila, 
and Tamaulipas, would be an act of direct aggression upon 
Mexico, for all the consequences of which the United States 
would stand responsible." 

Mr. AYright, in a speech at Watertown, N. Y., said : " I felt 
it to be ray duty to vote against the ratilication of the Treaty 
of Annexation. I believed that the treaty, from the boundaries 
that must be implied from it, embraced a country to which 
Texas had no claims, over which she had never asserted 
jurisdiction, and which she had no right to cede." 

The intention was, however, as is evident from the letter 
of Mr. Calhoun, for the United States, as Mr. Ashley had 
said of Texas, to have " a large margin in the negotiation 
loith Mexico.'' And finally, as a conclusive and unanswera- 
ble proof that there was a question open relative to the 
boundaries, we have the Message of President Polk, Dec. 
1845,* in Avhich it is said that Mr. Slidell was authorized, as 
" an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to 
Mexico, clothed with full powers to adjust and definitely 
settle all pending differences between the two countries, 
including those of boundary between Mexico and the State 
of Texas." The matter was so understood by Mr. Donel- 
son, diplomatic agent to Texas, who wrote to Gen. Taylor, 
during the summer of 1845 : " I would by no means be un- 
derstood as advising you to take an offensive attitude in regard 
to Mexico, without further orders from the Government of 
the United States." 

" The occupation of the country between the Nueces and 
the Rio Grande, you are aware, is a disputed question." 

In 1836, an agent, Mr. Morfitt, was despatched by Gen. 
Jaokson, the President of the United States, to examine 
and report upon the condition of Texas, which had then 

* See, on this and other pohits below, the official documents of Con- 
gress, and the Appendix to the Congressional Globe. 

6 



62 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 

established an independent government ; and in his report, 
dated in August of that jear, he stated : that " the political 
limits of Texas proper, previous to the last revolution, were 
the Nueces River on the west, along the Red River on the 
north, the Sabine on the east, and the Gulf of Mexico on 
the south."* 

Again ; Mr. Donelson, in a letter to justify his refusal to 
order Gen. Taylor to occupy the east bank of the Rio 
Grande, writes, July 11, 1845, to Mr. Buchanan, Secretary 
of State : " The Joint Resolution of our Congress left the 
question (of limits between Texas and Mexico) an open 
one." 

" I have been far from admitting that the claim of Texas 
to the Rio Grande ought not to be maintained. This was 
not the question. It was, whether, under the circumstances, 
we should take a position to make war for this claim, in the 
face of an acknowledgment on the part of this government, 
(Texas,) it could be settled by negotiation. I at once 
decided that we should take no such position, but should 
regard only as within the limits of our protection that por- 
tion of territory actually possessed by Texas, and whijh she 
did not consider a subject of negotiation." " TMiat the exe- 
cutive of Texas had determined not to fight for, but to settle 
by negotiation, to say the least of it, could as well be left to 
the United States upon the same condition." 

Mr. Woodbury, in his speech in favor of ratifying the 
Treaty of Annexation, says : " Texas, by a mere law, could 
acquire no title but what she conquered from Mexico, and 
actually governed. Hence, though her law includes more 
than the ancient Texas, she could hold and convey only 
that, or at the uttermost only what she exercised clear juris- 
diction over."t 

»♦■ 

* House Journal, No. 35, 2d Session, 24th Congress ; 24tli Congress, 
2d Session, Ho. of Rep. Ex. Doc. No. 35, p. 12. 

t Appendix to Congressional Globe. June, 1844, p. 768. 



AEGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 63 

Mr. Gallatin says : " The Republic of Texas did, by an 
act of Dec. 1836, declare the Rio del Norte to be its boun- 
dary. It will not be seriously contended that a nation has a 
right, by a law of its own, to determine what is or shall be 
the boundary between it and another country. The act was 
nothing more than the expression of the wishes or preten- 
sions of the government. As regards right, the act of Texas 
is a perfect nullity."* 

Up to the last moment before the war broke out, Gen. 
Taylor acknowledged that the question of boundaries was 
open ; for, in his reply to Gen. Ampudia, who commanded 
him to retire beyond the Nueces, he said, April 12, 1846 : f 
" I have been ordered to occupy the country up to the left 
bank of the Rio Grande, until the boundary shall be definitively 
settled:' 

A work, entitled The Republic of the United States of 
America, embracing a review of the war and defending it, 
says, p. 112: " By the act of annexation, the question of 
boundary between Mexico and Texas was left an open one, 
to be decided by negotiation between the governments of 
Mexico and the United States." 

The Message of the President of the United States, in 
relation to the territories of New Mexico and California, of 
July 24, 1848, states: "That the province of New Mexico, 
according to its ancient boundaries, as claimed by Mexico, 
lies on both sides of the Rio Grande. That part of it on 
the east of that river was in dispute when the war between 
the United States and Mexico commenced. * * * « 

" Though the republic of Texas, by many acts of sove- 
reignty which she exerted and exercised, some of which 
were stated in my Annual Message of December, 1846, had 
established her clear title to the country west of the Nueces, 
and bordering on that part of the Rio Grande which lies below 

* Peace with Mexico, p. 7. 

t 30th Congress, 1st Session, Ex. Doc. No. 60, p. 139. 



64 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 

the province of New Mexico, she had never conquered or 
reduced to actual possession, and brought under her govern- 
ment and laws, that part of New Mexico lying east of the Rio 
Grande, which she claimed to be within her limits. On the 
breaking out of the war, we found Mexico in possession of 
this disputed territory. As our army approached Sante Fe, 
(the capital of New Mexico,) it was found to be held by a 
governor under Mexican authority, and an armed force col- 
lected to resist our advance. The inhabitants were Mexi- 
cans, acknowledging allegiance to Mexico. The boundary 
in dispute was the line between the two countries engaged in 
actual war, and the settlement of it, of necessity, depended on 
a treaty of peace.*** 

Observe, this was a region east of the Rio Grande. Ob- 
serve, too, that as Santa Fe, on the Upper Rio Grande, was 
confessedly not brought under the government and laws of 
Texas ; so was neither the port of Point Isabel, nor other 
towns and villages on the Lower Rio Grande. All that can 
be predicated of one can be of the other, so far as their 
being " conquered and reduced to the actual possession " of 
Texas was concerned. 

Finally, we quote at length a most significant passage on 
the special subject of the boundary, and the general question 
of the war, from " the author " of annexation himself, Mr. 
Calhoun, whose sincerity in declaring his opinions, whatever 
we may think of their nature and bearing, never has been 
called in question. 

He says : t "It is true Mexico claimed the whole of 
Texas ; but it is equally true that she recognized the dif- 
ference, and showed a disposition to act upon it, between the 
country known as Texas proper and the country between it 
and the Del Norte. It is also true, that we and Texas 
recognized the same difference, and that both regarded the 

* The italics are ours. 

t Printed speech, United States Senate, Feb. 24, 1847, pp. 12, 13. 



ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 65 

boundary as unsettled; as the resolution of annexation, 
which provides that the boundary between Texas and Mex- 
ico shall be determined by the United States, clearly shows. 
It is worthy of remark, in this connection, that this provision 
in the Joint Resolution is understood to have been inserted, 
in consequence of the ground taken at the preceding session 
by the Senator from Missouri, on the discussion of the 
treaty, that the Nueces was the western boundary of Texas, 
and that to extend that boundary to the Rio del Norte would 
take in part of TamauUpas, Coahuila, and New Mexico. 
What, then, ought to have been the course of the executive, 
after annexation, under tliis resolution ? The very one 
which they at first pursued, — to restrict the position of our 
troops to the country actually occupied by Texas at the 
period of annexation. All beyond, as far as the executive 
was concerned, ought to have been regarded as subject to 
the provisions of the resolutions, which authorized the gov- 
ernment to settle the boundary. 

***** 
" Why negotiate, if it were not an unsettled question ? 
Why negotiate, if the Rio del Norte, — is, as it was after- 
wards assumed, — was the clear and unquestionable boun- 
dary ? And if not, upon what authority, after the attempt 
to open negotiation had failed, could he determine what was 
the boundary, viewing it as an open question ? Was it not 
his plain duty, on such an occurrence, to submit the question to 
Congress, which was then in session, and in whom the right 
of establishing the boundary and declaring war was clearly 
invested ? Had that course been adopted, I greatly mistake 
if the sense of this body would not have been decidedly 
opposed to taking any step, which would have involved the 
two countries in war. Indeed I feel a strong conviction, 
that if the Senate had been left free to decide on the ques- 
tion, not one-third of the body would have been found in 
favor of war. As it was, a large majority felt themselves 
6* 



66 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 

compelled, as they believed, to vote for the bill recognizing 
the existence of war, in order to raise the supplies of men 
and money necessary to rescue the army under Gen. Taylor, 
on the Del Norte, from the dangers to which it was ex- 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 

" Let us hope, then, that the law of nature, which makes virtuous 
conduct produce benefit, and vice loss to the agent, in the long run, 
which has sanctioned the common principle, that honesty is the best 
policy, will in time influence the proceedings of nations as well as 
individuals ; that we shall at length be sensible, that war is an instru- 
ment entirely inefficient toward redressing wi'ong ; that it multiplies, 
instead of indemnifying losses.' — Jefferson. 

Notwithstanding the foregoing irrefragable proofs that 
the boundary between Texas and Mexico was in dispute, it 
has been asserted that the Louisiana purchase, of 1803, ex- 
tended to the Rio Grande. So it was claimed, as it is cus- 
tomary to have " a large margin for negotiation." But it 
was a trick of diplomacy. Western Florida was laid claim 
to, as a part of the same purchase, but the claim did not 
stand. So Oregon was claimed, to 54° 40', but the treaty 
reduced the line down to 49.° These large margins of 
claims are the last things a reasonable being would suppose 
that nations would be willing to carry before the bar of the 
Public Opinion of Christendom, as adequate causes of war. 
If annexation was but re-annexation, why did the United 
States sleep so many years, and allow an independent repub- 
lic of Texas to swallow up the claim, and put in peril of 



ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 67 

perpetual alienation, or of foreign domination, the rights 
of the American Union, from the Sabine to the Rio 
Grande ? * 

The defence that is set up on the ground that Texas, 
when she became independent, claimed to the Rio Grande, 
and that Santa Anna, in 1836, allowed the claim, is equally 
futile. Why Texas aspired so far, is confessed in the quo- 
tation already made from Mr. Asliley, in which he vouches 
for the reason why that was done, on the very competent 
authority of the President of the Texan Convention that 
formed the Constitution. The fact that Santa Anna was a 
Texan prisoner of war, which is stated at the very head of 
the preamble of the alleged treaty, and in imminent danger 
of having his head cut off t if he did not concede all that 
was required of him, is a sufficient answer to that branch 
of the argument.^ A compulsory obligation of that kind, 

* Hon. J. Q. Adams said, in tlic House of Representatives, May 
13, 1846, "I wrote that despatch as Secretary of State, and endea- 
voured to make out the best case I could for my countiy, as it was my 
duty. But I utterly deny that I claimed the Rio del Norte as our 
boundary, in its full extent. I only claimed it a short distance up the 
river, and then diverged to the northward some distance from the 
stream." — Appendix to the Congressional Globe, p. 907, 29th Congress, 
1st Session. 

t Ailicle 8th of the " Treaty." " The President and Cabinet of the 
Republic of Texas, exercising the high powers confided to them by 
the people of Texas, do, for and in consideration of the foregoing 
stipulation, solemnly engage to refrain from taking tlve life of the Presi- 
dent.^ Santa Anna, and of the several officers of his late army^^ etc. And 
article 11 th threatens, in case of refusal to enter into such an agree- 
ment, such treatment as Texas might deem proper in view of Mexican 
cruelties ! 

X Gen. Lamar, Secretary of war of Texas, says, in a letter to the 
President, Burnet, May 12, 1836, " What good can they hope to result 
from an extorted treaty ? General Santa Anna is our prisoner of war. 
* * * What he assents to \yhilst a prisoner, he may reject 
when a freeman." 



^ ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 

loses its binding force from the very nature of the circum- 
stances wliich give it birth. Besides, he could not constitu- 
tionally act for the whole Mexican Government, although 
he was President ; and one of the first acts the govern- 
ment did when he returned home, was to disown the so- 
called " treaty" of San Jacinto. 

It is true that Texas had exercised some acts of " sove- 
reignty and jurisdiction west of the Nueces. Corpus Christi 
was on that side of the river. But power was one thing, and 
right was another. She might and did exercise such power 
west of the Nueces ; but that was a very different jurisdiction 
from going to the Rio Grande^ 150 miles, in the use of her 
prerogatives. She had an imperfect revolutionary title to 
certain places and pai'ts,* as just stated ; but the documents 
already quoted make it as plain as noon-day that both 
Texas and the United States, before and after annexation, 
regarded the Rio Grande only as a negotiable, not as an 
estabhshed hue. The Texas of annexation was not a de- 
finite, but an indefinite territory. Every speech, eveiy 
resolution, every letter, every message declared it without 
a dissenting voice before the war began. To go to war 
with Mexico for debatable land, was what Texas did not 
expect or require, as Mr. Donelson stated ; for the ques- 
tion was not one to be settled by war, for war settles no- 
thing, but unsettles everything ; but it was a legitimate sub- 
ject for diplomacy, and Mexico consented to meet the United 
States in the person of a commissioner appointed for that 
purpose, and for none other. 

* The Texas county of San Patricio was west of the river Nueces, 
and lay in the immediate neighborhood of Corpus Christi. The 
official language of Mr. Donelson was, " Corpus Christi ^ * * is 
the most western point now occupied by Texas." 

" The occupation of the country between tlie Nueces and the Rio 
Grande, you are aware, is a disputed question. Texas holds Corpus 
Christi ; Mexico, Santiago, near the mouth of the Rio Grande." 



ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 69 

The fact tliat certain gazeteers, geographies, and atlases, 
from 1820 to the present time, stated the Rio Grande as the 
boundary of Texas, are all of suspicious authority, for they 
are chiefly American works ; and they no more prove that 
such was the real boundary of that province, than Mitchell's 
outline map, extending the northern line of Oregon to 54° 40', 
proves that that was the true limit of the United States in 
that direction. Claims and rights are different terms. The 
blue and red of geographical lines are often the negotiable, 
rather than the adjusted Hmits. Let them pass for what 
they are worth; but they cannot shake one documentary 
fact, one diplomatic concession. Another conclusive proof 
that the left bank of the Rio Grande was not " American 
soil," m any other sense than that it was North American 
soil, is furnished by the facts that Mexican custom-houses 
were recognized at Brazos Santiago, or Point Isabel, and at 
Santa Fe, by the United States ; and that duties were paid 
by its citizens at those places after the annexation of Texas. 
An official order was issued by the Secretary of the Trea- 
sury regulating exportation to, and importation from Santa 
Fe, as a Mexican town within the period, when, according 
to other statements of high authority, it must have consti- 
tuted an integral portion of Texas, and, therefore, of the 
United States, after annexation.* 

=* An act of Congress was passed, May 3, 1845, "allowing a draw- 
back upon foreign merchandize exported in the original packages to 
Chihuahua and Santa F6, in Mexico,'' etc. And Mr. Walker, Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, says, in his annual report, December, 1845, that 
it had " gone to some extent into effect." — See the Official Docu- 
ments. 

The Austin Democrat, of 1848, in arguing the claims of Texas to 
Santa Fe, puts the case with great strength : " If Santa Fe is a pro- 
vince taken by force of arms from Mexico, (and, therefore, belonging 
to the United States as a territory, and not to the State of Texas), so 
was the country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande ; and the 
very moment Gen. Taylor set foot on the western bank of the former 



70 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 

This point was so indisputable, that it was freely admit- 
ted before the war, though, after the war broke out, it 
seemed to be, in spirit at least, denied. Thus the Secretary 
of War, July 8, 1845, in a letter to Gen. Taylor, wrote as 
follows: — " Tliis Department is informed that Mexico has 
some military establishments on the east side of the Rio 
Grande, which are, and for some time have been, in the 
actual occupancy of her troops. In cariying out the in- 
structions heretofore received, you will be careful to avoid 
any acts of aggression, unless an actual state of war should 
exist. The Mexican forces at the parts in their possession, 
and wliich have been so, will not be disturbed as long as the 
relations of peace between the United States and Mexico 
continue." * 

On July 30, 1845, the Secretary again wrote to the 
American General as follows : — " You are expected to oc- 
cupy, protect, and defend the territory of Texas, to the ex- 
tent that it has been occupied by the people of Texas. The 
Rio Grande is claimed to be the boundary between the two 
countries, and up to this boundary you are to extend your 
protection, only excepting any posts on the eastern side 
thereof which are in the actual occupancy of Mexican 
forces, or Mexican settlements, over which the Republic of 
Texas did not exercise jurisdiction at the period of annex- 
ation, or shortly before that event. It is expected, in select- 
stream, he committed an aggression upon a foreign soil, and hostilely 
invaded a country Avith which his country was at peace. If Laredo 
was ours, so was Santa Fe ; if Santa Fe was not, neither was Laredo." 

We give a list of the following towns and hamlets then belonging to 
Mexico on the east side of the Eio Grande, taken from Mr. Davis's 
speech in the House of Representatives, Dec. 22, 1846, and from Lieut. 
Emory's Map ; — Embuda, Canada, Nambe, Pojuaque, Santa Fe, 
Agua Fria, San Juan, Zandia, Alameda, Albuquerque, Valencia, 
Tome, Las Nutrias, Paiida, Valverde, Prenido, Laredo, and many 
Others. 

* 30th Congress, 1 st Session, Ex. Doc. No fiO, p. 82. 



ARGUMENTS FOU PEACE. t i 

ing the establishment for your troops, you will approach as 
near the boundary line, the Rio Grande, as prudence will 
dictate. With this view the President desires that your 
position, for a part of your forces at least, should be west of 
the river Nueces."* 

And on Nov. 10, 1845, the American Executive instruct- 
ed ]VIr. Slidell, envoy to Mexico, to offer a relinquishment 
of the claims of the United States against that nation, and 
$ 5,000,000, provided she would allow the Rio Grande to be 
established as the western boundary of Texas, f 

It were easy to quote from Mexican authorities numerous 
declarations to the effect that the occupation of the left bank 
of the Rio Grande was an act of invasion, and, therefore, 
of war, on the part of the American troops. But it will be 
more to our purpose to show, at some length, that such was 
unconsciously, and even against stout disclaimers, the feeling 
and natural expression of the Americans, as well as of the 
Mexicans, and even of the prime agents and actors in the 
annexation of Texas, and the war with Mexico. " Nature 
cannot be driven out with a pitchfork." What men really 
feel, they will unconsciously, and unfavorably to their own 
cause, express, if not directly, yet at least incidentally. 

We pass by in this connection the declaration of Mr. Ben- 
ton in the Senate, that to occupy the east bank of the Rio 
Grande, " would be an act of direct aggression on Mexico," 
and quote that of Mr. IngersoU in the House of Represen- 
tatives,! that " the stupendous deserts between the Nueces 
and the Bravo (the Rio Grande or del Norte) rivers, are 
the natural boundaries between the Anglo-Saxon and the 
Mauritanian races. There ends the valley of the west. 

* 30th Congresp, 1st Session, Ex. Doc. No. 60, pp. 82, 83. 

t Ibid. ^>o. 52, p. 78. $ 25,000,000 were to be offered for California, 
and $20,000,000 for that province, provided the line of boundary 
should not include Monterey on the Pacific, p. 79. 

t 29th Congress, 1st Session, Appendix to Cong. Globe. 



72 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 

There Mexico begins. Thence, beyond the Bravo, begin 
the Moorish people and their Indian associates, to whom 
Mexico properly belongs, who should not cross that desert 
if they could, as on our side we ought to stop there ; because 
interminable conflicts must ensue from either our going 
Bouth, or their coming north of that gigantic boundary. 
While peace is cherished, that boundary will be sacred. 
Not till the spirit of conquest rages, will the people on 
either side molest or mix with each other ; and whenever 
they do, one or the other race must be conquered or extin- 
guished." 

Mr. Calhoun, too, in a letter dated Aug. 12, 1844, to Mr. 
King, the American minister to France, says, " Nature her- 
self has clearly marked the boundary between her (Mexico) 
and Texas, by natural limits too strong to be mistaken." * 

"We come then, first, to an incidental and unconscious testi- 
mony of the commander of the American troops himself. 
When he met on the river Colorado on his march, the 
Mexican officer, who forbade his crossing that river, and 
declared that the act would be regarded as an unwarranted 
aggression on Mexico, how did Gen. Taylor conduct the 
matter ? Did he act and speak as if the Mexican troops, 
by advancing some thirty miles east of the Rio Grande, had 
violated the territory of the United States ? Did he charge 
them with invasion, and order them to retire into their own 
country on the right bank of the Rio Grande ? Not at all. 
He manifests no zeal to repel invasion. He kindles with no 
indignation that they should threaten to shed " American 
blood on American soil." His whole mien and behavior 
wear the most indubitable and natural semblance to that 
of an invader. He does not order ofi" the opposing troops, 
as if they had no right there, but he manifests, a deter- 

* 28th Congress, 2nd Session, Appendix to Congressional Globe, 
p. 5. 



ARGUMENTS FOK PEACE. 73 

mined spirit to go whither he was ordered, right or wrong, 
and no matter through what opposition. He had none of 
the passion with which he would have met a British force 
advancing in hostile array into New York or Illinois. His 
whole bearing says in words that could not lie, " My march 
is an aggression on Mexico, or at least an advance upon dis- 
puted territory. If the Mexicans are invaders, so much 
more am I. But a soldier must obey orders." If these 
things were not so, why did not the brave commander fire 
on these presumptuous aggressors, who had penetrated so 
far into an American State under the protection of the 
Union ? Once at least Gen. Taylor so far forgot himself as 
to write thus, "It was my earnest desire to execute my 
instructions in a pacific manner, to observe the utmost re- 
gard for the personal rights of all citizens residing on the left 
hank of the river, and to take care that the religion and 
customs of the people should suffer no violation."* Truly 
a very worthy spirit. But why this exceeding care, if these 
were citizens, not of Mexico, but of the United States, as 
the pretended boundary claim made them ? 

A similar undesigned, and therefore altogether more pow- 
erful, evidence that Gen. Taylor had advanced upon Mexican, 
or at least disputed, soil, is afforded by his officers and men, 
writing home to their friends, or by letter-writers, who were 
in favor of the Mexican war, and who did not see the bearing 
of their own statements. "We quote high Executive author- 
ity to the same effect. 

In his annual message of Dec, 1846, the President says, 
'' by rapid movements the province of New Mexico, with 
Santa Fe, its capital, has been captured without bloodshed," 

Again, he says in the same message, " in less than seven 
months after Mexico commenced hostilities, at a time select- 
ed by herself, we have taken possession of many of her 

* oOth Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. 
No. 60. p. 145. 

7 



74 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 

principal posts, driven back and pursued her invading army, 
and acquired military possession of the Mexican provinces of 
New Mexico, New Leon, Coahuila, Tamaulipas," * etc. But 
all these provinces extended east of the Rio Grande, except 
New Leon. 

T. B. Thorpe, author of " Our Army on the Rio Grande," 
and other works, in describing the approach of Gen. Tay- 
lor's army to that river, says, " Large droves of splendid 
horned cattle were now frequently seen ; and occasionally a 
small cotton field, hedged in by thorn bushes, strengthened 
by trunks of trees set in the ground, gave welcome evidence 
of a settled country. Scattered 3Iexican huts next ap- 
peared." Could this have been a part of Texas proper ? 

The author of " the Life of General Zachary Taylor, and 
a History of the War in Mexico," published in the " Brother 
Jonathan, Battle Sheet, 1847," an advocate of the war, uses 
the following language : " The administration at Washington, 
on the 13th of January, 1846, ordered Gen. Taylor to move 
forward, and occupy the east bank of the Rio Grande, oppo- 
site Matamoras, but not disturb any of the Mexican settle- 
ments, or any military posts that might be on this side of the 
Rio Grande, and to purchase every thing needed for the army 
at the highest price." 

Again, " on setting out on this march, he (Gen. Taylor) 
embodied the above instructions in one of his general orders, 
which he caused to be circulated among the Mexicans on the 
east side of the Rio Grande.'* 

Again, " on the 24th, Gen. Taylor, leaving the main com- 
mand with Gen. Worth, and taking with him Col. Twiggs, 
and his dragoons, approached Frontone, a small Mexican 
village at Point Isabel, in the department of Tamaulipas, 

* The Legislature of Tamaulipas lias demanded two millions of dol- 
lars of the Federal Government, as indemnity for the territory North 
of the Rio Grande, ceded to tlie United States by the treaty of Gaud- 
al upc. — Neivspaper, 1843. 



ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 75 

where Gen. Garcia was stationed with two Imndred and fifty 
men." 

And once more ; " but three or four inojffensive Mexicans 
were found in the place (Frontone)." * 

We ask how could all these things have been, if this were 
American, Texan, or United States soil ? 

Capt, W. S. Henry, of the U. S. Armj, wrote a work, en- 
titled " Campaign Sketches of the "War with Mexico," in 
which the following passages, unconscious witnesses of the 
truth, are found : 

"Friday, August 1, 1845. After enjoying the delightful 
view from the bluff, a party of us strolled over the beautiful 
plain, on the borders of which many Mexican families reside." 
Observe that this was in the immediate vicinity of Corpus 
Christi. 

" March 19, 1846. Passed many pens in which the 
Mexicans confine their droves of cattle and horses." 

" March 23d. " This part of the country is really beauti- 
ful, and I am not surprised that the Mexicans are loath to 
part with it." 

"March 28th. As we approached the bank we passed 
through a long line of Mexican huts." 

" Two hours after our arrival a flag-staff was erected, un- 
der the superintendence of Colonel Belknap, and soon the 

* A law was passed by the Congress of the United States, after the 
annexation of Texas, Dec. 29, 1845, "That the State of Texas shall 
be one collection district, and the city of Galveston the only port of 
entry, to which shall be annexed Sabine, Velasco, Matagorda, Cavello, 
La Vaca, and Corpus Christi, as ports of delivery only." No port 
routes were established beyond the valley of the Nueces until after the 
Commencement of the war. 

By an additional act of Congress, passed March 3, 1847, Saluzia was 
made the only port of entry, and Matagorda, Aranzas, Capano, and 
Corpus Christi, the only ports of delivery in that collection district of 
Texas. 

Why were Brazos, Santiago, and Point Isabel left out, if they be- 
longed at that time to Texas ? 



76 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 

flag of our countiy, a virgin one, was seen floating upon the 
banks of the Rio Grande, proclaiming in a silent but impres- 
sive manner that the ' area of freedom ' was again extended. 
As it was hoisted, the band of the 8th Lifantrj played the 
<• Star-spangled Banner,' and the field music ' Yankee Doo- 
dle.' There was not ceremony enough in raising it. The 
troops should have been paraded under arms, the banner of 
our countiy should have been hoisted with patriotic strains 
of music, and a national salute should have proclaimed, in 
tones of thunder, that ' Liberty and Union, now and forever, 
one and inseparable,' had advanced to the banks of the Rio 
Grande." Then it is certain that they had not reached that 
river before Gen. Taylor pitched his camp there, by this 
writer's own testimony.* 

The same author says, under date of March 30th, " our 
situation is truly extraordinary : right in the enemy's country 
(to all appearance,) actually occupying their com and cotton 
fields, the people of the soil leaving their homes,t and we, with 
a small handful of men, marching with colors flying and 
drums beating, right under the very guns of one of their 
principal cities, displaying the star-spangled banner, as if in 
defiance under their very nose ; and they, with an army twice 
our size at least, sit quietly down and make no resistance, not 
the fii^t effort to di-ive us off*." 

In a " Life of Major-General Zachary Taylor, with an 
account of his brilliant achievements on the Rio Grande," 
etc., etc., by C. Frank Powell, is the following passage ; | "we 

* The Italics are ours. 

t " Tlie population fled at the approach of your army. I wish to 
know if it has come to this, that when an American army goes to pro- 
tect American citizens on American territory, they flee from it as from 
the most harbarous enemy ? Yet such is the assumption of those who 
pretend that on the east bank of the Rio Gi-ande, where your arras took 
possession, there were Texas population, Texas power, Texas laws, 
and American United States power and law." — Corwiris Speech, in ih» 
Senate, Fek\\,\%Al. J p. 13. 



ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 77 

shall not make it our province to question the policy of taking 
forcible possession of a territory known to be held in dispute 
by two free and independent republics ; but nothing is clear- 
er than that the commander of the American forces but com- 
plied with implicit instructions of the Department, which were 
his guaranty and justification." 

"We cannot say, that neutrality would have been pre- 
served had possession not been taken; and it would seem 
that the acquisition of the republic, — but in equal part 
interested in the dispute, — by a third power, did not change 
the position of affairs, or authorize such power to invest the 
territory. Be this as it may, however, on the 28 th of March, 
1846, the United States' army took up its quarters opposite 
Matamoras, and planted the United States' flag in the ancient 
department of Tamaulipas" 

Gen. Taylor wix)te to the Adjutant General,* April 6, 
1846 : " On our side, a battery for four 18 pounders will be 
completed, and the gmis placed in battery to-day. These 
guns bear directly upon the public square of Matamoras, 
and within good range for demolishing the town. Their 
object cannot be mistaken by the enemy." 

The force of these quotations from active agents or advo- 
cates of the war, is to prove that acts of invasion and hos- 
tility, if committed by either party up to the date of these 
extracts, were chargeable on the Ameiican authorities. 
They had pushed their troops into a debatable region. 
They had penetrated among Mexican villages and fields, 
and planted their cannon in hostile array, commanding a 
Mexican city. If these were not acts of war, (casus belli,) 
they were acts provocative of war; and, if not designed, 
yet, assuredly, they were perfectly adapted, to plunge the 
two countries into a sanguinary conflict. Had pacific coun- 
sels prevailed in both governments, we can now see how 

* 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. 
No. 60, p. 133.' 

7* 



78 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 

easily and honorablj those occasions and steps might have 
been shunned, which resuhed at last in such terrific evils, 
both to the victor and the victim. Far be it from us to 
exempt either Mexico or the United States from deep guilt, 
in bringing on the contest ; but which government was chiefly 
instrumental in springing the mine at last, has been made 
sufficiently clear by the preceding remarks. 

In this connection it will be proper, as a part of the his- 
tory of the war, to state, that it had actually begun, and two 
principal battles, those of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, 
had been fought, before the Congress of the United States, 
the war-making power, was apprized of what was going for- 
ward, and the steps which had been taken to bring matters 
to a crisis ; or had been favored with an opportunity to pro- 
nounce on the merits or causes of a war with Mexico. 
Their vote, therefore, was but a foregone conclusion. 
They but registered the decision that had gone forth from 
another branch of the government. While, accordingly, 
the House of Representatives of the 29th Congress, on May 
13, 1846, voted, by a majority of 173 to 14, that, "by the 
act of the republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between 
that government and the United States;" on Jan. 3, 1848, 
the — newly chosen House of Representatives of the 30th 
Congress voted, in a Joint Resolution of thanks to Gen. 
Taylor, his officers, and men, by a majority of 85 to 81, that 
the war was " unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by 
the President of the United States ; " and this vote was sub- 
sequently sustained against reconsideration, on Feb. 14th, by 
a majority of 115 to 94. 

Having thus far discussed the beginning of the war, as an 
argument for peace, as a precedent, illustrating the saying 
of the Wise Man, that it is better to " leave off contention 
before it be meddled with ; " we now proceed to make a few 
remarks on the termination of the contest, as also bearing 
witness in behalf of the cause of peace. 



ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 79 

Various proposals were made to the Mexican Govern- 
ment, during the prosecution of the war, to enter into nego- 
tiations of peace. Offers were addressed, at different periods, 
by the superior commanders, acting under directions from 
home, to treat of matters in dispute between the two coun- 
tries ; but Mexico, feeling herself deeply wronged and 
aggrieved, and clinging to the principle of the integrity of 
the national domains, rejected with scorn all pacific counsels. 

It was with this view, that an armistice of eight weeks 
formed one of the articles of the capitulation of Monterey. 
And, after the battle of Buena Vista, Gen. Taylor sent an 
officer to Gen. Santa Anna, " to express to him the desire 
still cherished by the American Government, for the re- 
establishment of peace." " Say to Gen. Taylor," was the 
reply, " that we sustain the most sacred of causes, — the 
defence of our territory, and the preservation of our nation- 
ality and rights." 

After the battle of Cerro Gordo, Gen. Scott addressed a 
letter to the Mexican people, to persuade them to entertain 
propositions of peace, and to understand their true interests. 
But the effort was fruitless. 

Finally, the sword, drunk as it was with human blood, 
proving an ineffectual instrument of pacification, a more 
hopeful plan suggested itself to the American Government. 
N. P. Trist, Esq., as before stated, was appointed, on the 
15th of April, 1847, an agent, by the President, unconfirmed 
and unauthorized by the Senate, the confirming and treaty- 
making power ; and his commission stated that he was in- 
vested, " in the fullest and most complete manner, with 
ample power and authority, in the name of the United 
States, to meet and confer with any person or persons, who 
shall have similar authority from the republic of Mexico, 
and between them to negotiate and conclude an arrangement 
of the differences which exist between the two countries — 
a treaty of peace, amity, and lasting boundaries. Mr. Trist 



80 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 

carried with him to Mexico, from the department of State, 
" a project of a treaty." Its principal features were, the 
cession to the United States of the disputed territory be- 
tween the Nueces and the Rio Grande, with the adoption of 
the latter river as the boundary line ; the cession of New 
Mexico, and both Upper and Lower California; and the 
free right of way forever across the isthmus of Tehuantepec. 
Three millions of dollars had been placed, by Congress, at 
the disposal of the President of the United States, by which 
the provisions of a treaty of peace might be concluded, and 
its objects fulfilled, Mr. Trist accompanied Gen. Scott and 
his army to the Valley of Mexico ; and, after the battles of 
Contreras and Churubusco, he met Mexican commissioners, 
specially appointed to negotiate a treaty. From the 27th of 
August, 1847, to the 7th of September, the commission thus 
jointly constituted was in session, at a small village in the 
immediate vicinity of the capital. Mr. Trist laid his pro- 
ject before the Mexican commissioners, who also proposed 
conditions of peace, that rested essentially on these points : 
the adoption of the Nueces as the boundary ; thence west to 
the eastern boundary of New Mexico; thence north with 
that boundary to the thirty-seventh degree of latitude ; 
thence west with that parallel to the Pacific ; and that the 
country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande should be 
left as an uninhabited country. But the commission could 
not agree ; the failure turning wholly on the claim of the 
south part of New Mexico, which neither party would yield; 
while Mr. Trist was willing to concede Lower California, 
and to refer the question of the Nueces territory to the 
cabinet at Washington. On the 7th of September the dis- 
cussions closed, and on the 8th Gen. Scott opened his cannons 
on Mollno del Rey. 

Mr. Trist was subsequently recalled, by the President of 
the United States, and his authority as a peace commissioner 
declared to be at an end. But he remained in Mexico, with 



ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 81 

the army ; and, on the 2d of February, 1848,* he negotiated, 
with commissioners appointed by the Mexican Government, 
the treaty of peace, which has akeady in the preceding 
chapter been mentioned, as receiving finally the ratification 
of the lawful powers of both governments. The articles of 
pacification are too well known, to be repeated at length. 
It is sufficient to staie, that the troops of the United States 
were to withdraw from Mexico ; the blockaded ports to be 
opened ; the Rio Grande to be the boundary line on the 
Gulf of Mexico, and on the Pacific the line between Upper 
and Lower California; the payment of fifteen millions of 
dollars to Mexico, in consideration of the territory thus 
acquired ; and the exoneration of Mexico from all claims of 
citizens of the United States for spoliations, to the amount 
of several millions more. 

The conclusion of the war thus demonstrates the superior 
power and blessings of peace. Both parties were tired of 
the contest; the one of being defeated and ravaged, the 
other of losing thousands of lives, and millions of money. 
So far as the peace was a measure forced by the sword, it is 
as dishonorable in the light of humanity and Christianity to 
the victorious, as it is humiliating to the vanquished nation. 
For Fenelon, noble champion for • his day of the humane 
spirit in international intercourse, says, in his " Directions 
for the Conscience of a King," that "a treaty of peace, 
that is made from necessity, because one party is the 
stronger, is like that which is made with a robber, who 
has a pistol at your head." And so far as the power of 
money prevailed, where the power of the bayonet had failed, 
so far as the negotiation, though unauthorized at the time, 
succeeded, where the bravest general had been frustrated in 
" conquering a peace," the treaty might as well have been 
negotiated in February, 1846, as in February, 1848. 

* 30th Congress, 2d Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc, 
No. 50, on the Treaty of Peace. Also, Senate, Ex. Doc. No. 52. 



82 EXPENDITURES OP THE WAR. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 

" I said one day in Venice, in a company which was very clamorous 
for a war, I wish that each of the great men and great women present 
was ordered by the emperor to contribute, at the rate of four thousand 
ducats a head, to the charges of the war ; and that the other fine gen- 
tlemen among us were made to take the field forthwith, in person." — 

Prince Eugene, 

\ 

We devote this chapter to " the waste of treasure," pro- 
duced by the Mexican War, to both the nations concerned. 
There ai-e men of reputed wisdom and high standing, who 
scorn the consideration of the cost of a war. They deem it 
a sordid act to put money into one scale, to weigh against 
national glory in the other. We confess that money is not 
the chief good of life, and that wasting it by millions is not 
the d.ief evil of war. We confess that there are things 
which a nation should hold infinitely dearer than an over- 
flowing exchequer, and for which it should pour out its gold 
and silver with the bountifulness of the rains of heaven. 
Such are the maintenance of its just rights by Christian 
means, the diffusion of education and religion among its 
people, and the contribution of food and clothing for the 
famished and naked abroad, as well as to build up every 
good institution, asylum, and public work, that will insure 
the physical, domestic, and moral improvement of its masses. 
But we do not recognize this war as among these objects ; 
it be^oiiji? to a very different category. 

When we look, too, on one hand, at the horrid destitution 
and consequent degradation and wretchedness of extensive 



EXPE^-DlTrI^Eb uf nit war. 83 

strata of society in the old world, and then witness, on the 
other, the fruitful cause, direct or indirect, of this incalcula- 
ble woe, in the war-debts which hang like Alps and Andes 
around the necks of the European powers, we would utter a 
cry that should pierce the hearts of our countrymen, and 
warn them from the ambition of copying into their unwritten 
history so dark a chapter. Vice and misery need be no rid- 
dle or wonder in England or France, after w^e have read the 
history of their battles. Doubtless, many other causes be- 
sides war have contributed to dry up the sources of public 
prosperity, to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer, and 
multiply pauperism and ciime to an almost boundless extent. 
We, as citizens of a republican government, think we can 
identify these causes in some measure with the old feudal, 
monarchical, and ecclesiastical institutions that yet have a foot- 
ing beyond the Atlantic. But it is still our conviction that 
these causes, bad as they may be in themselves, have derived 
tenfold virulence of evil from the omnipresent and overshad- 
owing institutions and customs of War. For war, not only 
in a time of war, Avith its ruinous drain, near or remote, upon 
every branch of production and industry in the state ; but 
war, contradictory as the terms may be, in a time of peace, 
has swallowed up many millions more than the civil list. 
The treasury of the richest country on the earth, thus be- 
comes, like the sieve of the Danaides, always filling and 
always empty. And the fortune of the state is repeated in 
miniature in the fortune of the humblest citizen. For the 
waste of war is not half enumerated when we have summed 
up the huge public expenditures, which are as much beyond 
our imagination adequately to conceive, as the distance to one 
of the fixed stars, but we must gather up a countless heap of 
items, each minute in itself, but constituting a mountain of 
aggregate loss, — the poor man's garden trampled by the hoofs 
of the war-troop, the corn-fields cut up for forage, the little 
improvements on his acre ravaged, the one " ewe- lamb " ta- 



84 ExrtM)nrREs of the war. 

ken, the widow's cow driven away, or the widow's son wrest- 
ed from her side to bleed and languish in foreign parts. 
These, — and the catalogue might be run to any length, — 
constitute " a waste of treasure " and of human comfort in 
their lowlier aspects, which are never registered in the na- 
tional legers of the contending powers, but which are all re- 
corded with a pen of iron in the book of human life and of 
God, where every leaf is a broken heart. There need be 
some great cause, " known and read of all men," to justify 
the infliction at home and abroad of such manifold woes, else 
they accumulate and darken into a crime, before which all or- 
dinary guilt is but a breath of air. 

But the expenses of this war, great as they are, will not 
be too great a price to pay, if they shall serve to awaken any 
considerable portion of the people to the wrongs and barbar- 
ities of this old-world institution. We may rejoice, in one 
sense, in the heavy burdens men bring upon themselves for 
their sins. It is of a piece with the great retributive Provi- 
dence of God, as good as it is just. Fearful indeed would it 
be, if we could carry on such a contest with a powerful na- 
tion, and not have a mete recompense of reward following 
after it, to the pecuniary, as well as other interests of the 
country. We cannot act in this world under an exhausted 
receiver, in which we are cut off from the great vital atmos- 
phere of humanity, nor disconnect ourselves from the com- 
pound system of life, in which mutual action and reaction 
throughout are reigning principles. Thus viewed, the cost 
of our Wars, our Slaveries, our Intemperance and other vices 
and vicious customs, is a wise and kind punishment, inflicted 
upon us to remind us how far we have strayed from the ways 
of our God, and how hard and harder, the farther he walks 
in it, becomes the way of the transgressor. 

Property is one of the trusts of God to man, and though 
it is, of and by itself, one of the inferior blessings of life, yet 
the spirit in which the trust is discharged, and the uses to 



EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 85 

which money is applied, are matters of the first importance. 
As we use or abuse its magic power, we can kill or make 
alive, raise or sink, bless or curse, ourselves, our family, our 
town, our state. Property is one of the momentous trusts 
of government, and it may be transformed into camps or 
schools, bullets or books, destructive armies, or pacific explor- 
ing expeditions. It may be cast into the scale of civilization 
or barbarism. It may be employed to convert the goodly 
earth into a Pandemonium, or to hasten the Millennial ages. 

When, accordingly, the revenues of a people are expended 
in war, and a debt of fearful magnitude is saddled upon pos- 
terity, it is right to demand that a strong and sufficient rea- 
son be made out to justify such extraordinary measures. 
Much as men may be enamored of mihtary glory, and pas- 
sionately as they may resent any infringement upon their 
rights, yet war is a ruinous game to the winner as well as the 
loser. Every battle is as truly the destruction, by its imme- 
diate and its ramified influences and effects, of millions of the 
earnings of the laboring and producing classes, as if the balls 
were of silver, and the wadding Treasury notes. And some- 
where and upon somebody the loss will fall, and fall with the 
certainty of gravitation. Far away it may be ; and mixed 
up and mystified with endless details of currency, and tariffs 
and income-taxes, it probably will be; but upon the rich 
man's property, upon the poor man's sinews even more sure- 
ly, the reckoning will come, and the money, the mines and 
mints of money that were absorbed into mighty fleets and 
armies, and that went down at Trafalgar, or were blown into 
the canopy of smoke that shrouded Cerro Gordo, must all be 
paid, cent for cent, and dollar for dollar. Such is the waste 
and profligacy of war. Such is the tremendous responsibili- 
ty of those who set in motion its destroying agencies of fire 
and sword, famine and pestilence. 

The figures used in calculating the expenses of wars in 
general, are so vast that they are blunted in their force by 
8 



86 EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 

their very magnitude. For when we say, as is said on good 
authority, that the American Revolution cost Great Britain 
$680,000,000, that the French Revolutionary war of nine 
years from 1793, cost $2,320,000,000 ; that the contest with 
Napoleon, from 1803 to 1815," cost $5,795,000,000, or an 
average of $1,323,082 every day, or more than a million of 
it for war-purposes alone every day ; that Europe spent 
$15,000,000,000 for the wars that raged from 1793 to 1815 ; 
and that we of the United States expended in a period of 
forty-one years, from 1791 to 1832, during which time we 
had only two years and a half of actual war, the sum of 
$842,250,891, of which sum only $37,158,047 belonged to 
the civil list, the rest used for war purposes ; when we have 
read a few statistics of this appaUing kind, we seem to lose 
in the indefiniteness of such inconceivable sums of money the 
vivid impression which even the loss visibly of a single dol- 
lai- out of our own pocket would occasion. And it is perhaps 
somewhat to this mtellectual incapacity of comprehending 
the billions of the war-tax, as well as to moral apathy, that 
we may fairly attribute the ease with which every government 
satisfies the mass of its subjects in its outrageous expendi- 
tures for forts, and ships, and armies. And the marvel is, 
after we have surveyed the devastations of war upon man's 
prosperity, not that he starves, rebels, or speculates wildly 
about his condition on earth, not that multitudes sufler and 
perish in pauperism, famine, ignorance, and sin, but that so- 
ciety has any life left at all, that every vein of circulation is» 
not stagnant, and every nerve of motion palsied. 

Though much of the property thus expended by a na- 
tion is not actually annihilated, but only passes from one 
hand to another in purchasing the articles of war, yet 
when we have added to the qualified public account the 
innumerable private losses that go unrecorded, the sum total 
would exceed rather than fkll short of the above statements. 
And here observe, that nothing of all that man does under 



EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 87 

the sun, is so purely, so prodigally wasteful as war. It 
is killing, burning, exploding, consuming, wasting, cheating, 
in all its processes. It has no producing power. If 
called, in company with other trades and guilds to show 
the results of his labors, the warrior can only point to 
the smoking battle-field, to the shattered city, to the tramp- 
led fields, to dead and dying men and horses, to broken 
weapons and dismounted batteries, as the most consummate 
material trophies of his skill. His implements till no 
soil but "the dark and bloody ground," and his arm 
gathers no harvest but the harvest of death. His mes- 
sengers are missiles of destruction, and his arm rests when 
he has done his weary day's work on a pyramid of human 
skulls. " Thrifty, unwearied Nature, ever out of our great 
waste educing some little profit of her own, " may " shroud- 
in the gore and carnage, " and " next year the Marchfeld 
will be green, nay greener ;" but for every ear of wheat 
that waves over the unnatural field, some tear was shed, 
some heart was broken, some life was lost. The produc- 
tiveness of war would furnish a new chapter for Smith 
or Say on the wealth of nations and the laws of political 
economy. 

From the enormous outgoes of other wars we readily 
draw the expectation, that our frugal republican habits 
have suddenly launched out into the most spendthrift ways 
in our recent contest. The Florida war of six years with a 
handful of naked Seminoles cost $42,000,000. The French 
war with Algiers has for sixteen years cost $20,000,000, 
annually, making a grand total of $320,000,000. The Aff- 
ghan war, short as it was, cost Great Britain $65,000,000. 
For with all their inventions men have not yet disco- 
vered how to wage a cheap war. They invent labor-saving 
and ingenious machinery for every other work, but the 
horrid work of battle requires to be done by the practised 
hand and the steady eye of an intelligent agent. Hence 



88 EXPENDITURES OF WAR. 

with all the increased means of destruction, man has still 
in a great measure to do' the bloody drudgery himself, and 
work his own hellish engines ; he cannot drag the reluctant 
steam or electricity into his service to tend his cannon, 
or propel the serried array of his lances. General Taylor 
is thought to have given a heroic command to his troops 
in his General Orders on the day preceding the battle of 
Palo Alto in saying, " he wishes to enjoin upon the bat- 
tahons of Infantry that their main dependence must be in 
the bayonet ;" but it shows the manual labor, so to speak, 
of a battle, and the impossibility, as in the arts of peace, 
of shifting off a large amount of the toil upon the sponta- 
neous forces of nature. It requires men to kill men by 
the hundreds and thousands. The business cannot be done 
by machinery. 

The time of reckoning the cost of the Mexican war has 
not yet come. The most that can be done now is to make 
some general estimates from what is known and authenti- 
cated to what is unknown, and to what never will be known. 
But from documentary statements we learn that this war 
has not proved an exception to the general rule. It has 
consumed millions upon millions of American, and what to 
the philanthropist and Christian will be deeply, if not 
equally deplorable, millions upon millions of Mexican pro- 
perty. The capital that the two chief young republics 
of the earth could ill afford to lose, has been squan- 
dered. Heavy debts that will require years for their 
disbursement have been contracted. The energies of many 
thousand men in both countries have been diverted from 
industrial and productive occupations. Many have taken 
up the profession of arms, and will not return again to the 
pursuits of peace, but will seek to find, in some " Buffalo 
Hunt on the Rio Grande," or some "Fox Hunt in Canada," 
the chosen theatre of their adventures. 

The cost of the war to Mexico has probably on the whole 



EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 89 

been as great as it lias been to the United States.* For 
though her troops did not leave their own soil, nor require 
to be transported thousands of miles by land and water, 
yet she had three or four times as many in the field, and 
the killed and wounded men, cut off in the prime of life 
from all occupations, were far more numerous. The United 
States in most cases honorably paid the inhabitants where 
the country was conquered for all the articles consumed 
by the troops, but Mexico lost an immense sum by the 
blockade of every port in the Gulf and on the Pacific, the 
diversion of her maritime revenues into the coffers of her 
enemy, and the heavy military contributions that were 
levied upon the respective provinces, invaded both by Gen- 
eral Taylor and General Scott, and by the commodores on 
the several naval stations. She also lost an incalculable 
amount of public stores, and the material of war of every 
descrijDtion. So far as conquest was concerned and the 
fruits of conquest, all the gain was on the part of the United 
States, and all the loss on the part of her helpless victim, t 

* Three causes have been mentioned by some periodical wi-iter, 
why the United States have suffered Itss pecuniary loss in this war, 
than nations ordinarily do in such contests; 1. The distance of the 
active warfare from our own soil. 2. The perfect security and free- 
dom of our commerce. 3. The influx for a time of foreign specie, 
owing to the famine in Europe. — Advocate of Peace^ March and 
April, 1848, pp. 176—178. 

t The Quarter Master General reports, Nov. 24, 1 847, the receipt 
of $46,960,82 captured in Mexico, or accruing from customs. 

The Secretary of the Navy reports, Nov. 17, 1847, the collection 
by olhcers of the United States of $530,810,46 in the four 
cities of Vera Cruz, Tampico, Matamoras, and Saltillo, as military 
contributions levied upon them. 

The General Orders of Scott, dated Mexico, Dec. 31, 1847, as- 
sessed $3,046,568. on the several States of Mexico, according to their 
ability, being '• quadruple of the direct taxes paid by the several 
States to their Federal Government in the year 1843 or 1844." 
It was not, however, nearly all collected. 

8* 



90 



EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 



The actual destruction of private and public property must 
necessarily have been immense in the path of the invad- 
ing armies, and at the sieges of Monterey, Vera Cruz, 
Puebla, Atlixco, and Mexico, to say nothing of the bom- 
bardment of other places, Tuspan, Tobasco, and Huamantla. 
It will let us into the secrets of war-making a little to read 
such as the following items of intelligence taken at hazard. 
Edwards, in his sketch, entitled " Doniphan's Campaign, " 
pp. 153, 154, writes, " at this same Ceralvo we arrived 
on the twenty-ninth. It is one of the few places which 
Taylor did not destroy along the road: — he had been 
compelled to lay waste most of the ranchos and small towns, 
on account of their affording concealment to parties of 
guerillas who would occasionally rob the waggon trains." 
General Taylor in a letter to the War Department, dated 
Monterey, Sept. 28, 184G, says, " The command left by 
Colonel Harney at the Presidio crossing, having been 
fired upon by the Mexicans with the loss of one killed 
and two wounded, set fire to the puhlic stores they were left 
to protect, and retreated to San Antonio." The bombard- 
ment of Vera Cruz was computed to have destroyed 
between one and two millions of property.* These facts 
may serve to show the losses which probably ensued to a 

Tlic Secretary of War reports, Dec 1, 1848, that the amount of 
" contributions, and avails of captured property" cannot at that time 
be fully and accurately ascertained, but $3,844,373,77 were reported 
as received, and more was expected from New Mexico and California. 
— 30th Congress, 2nd Session, House of Representatives. Ex. Doc. 
1, p. 80. 

An officer, on board the United States' man-of-war Independence, 
wrote under date of April 15^ 1848, Mazatlan, that "we have col- 
lected or secured at the Custom House here duties to the amount 
of SI 50,000." 

* It was computed by some that the bombardment of Vera Cruz 
destroyed property to the amount of $3,000,000 ; and Mexican au- 
thorities asserted an equal loss at the capital, but it was no doubt 
exaggerated. 



EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 91 

greater or less extent at every point, touched or occupied by 
the American arms. When to these considerations we add 
the loss of part of her provinces of Tamauhpas, Coahuila, 
Chihuahua, and the whole of New Mexico, and Upper 
CaHfornia, we shall stand justified in the opinion that not- 
withstanding what she has received in indemnity, viz. 
the relinquishment of the claims, and the payment of 
$15,000,000, as a make-peace, the loss to Mexico has been 
fully equal to that of the United States. 

We proceed to state what that is, according to the most 
reliable documents and estimates; premising, however, that 
many years must pass, before any one can say what the 
expenses are in full ; since all the incidentals, — as pensions, 
bounties, and private claims, — of neither the Florida war, 
nor that of 1812, nor even that of the American Revolution, 
have as yet been ascertained and paid. The details, too, in 
official documents, are so difficult to analyze and understand, 
that none but an accomplished financier can do the subject 
full justice. Even Mr. Gallatin himself, one of the ablest 
and most experienced of living men in his day, in this de- 
partment of affairs, in his Treatise of 1848, entitled " War 
Expenses," is obhged, sometimes, to confess himself at 
fault. 

War was declared by the President of the United States, 
May 13, 1846, and peace was ratified by the Mexican Con- 
gress, May 25, 1848. The two nations were, therefore, 
embroiled with each other about two years. The fiscal year 
of the United States ends June 30th, and the two years of 
the war may be regarded as covering, in some measure, two 
fiscal years. The expenses of the war extended, however, 
materially into the fiscal year beginning June 30, 1848, 
and ending June 30, 1849. 



92 



EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 



The whole expenditures * of the Government of the 
United States, for the year ending June 30th, 
'1847, were . . / $59,451,000 

Whole expenditures of the year ending June 30th, 

1848 58,241,000 

Estimated expenditures of the year ending June 30th, 

1849 54,195,000 

$171,887,000 
The expenditures of the thi-ee previous years, how- 
ever, viz., 1844, 1845, and 1846, were only . . 90,957,000 

Leaving the round sum of $80,930,000 

which may chiefly be attributed to the war with 
Mexico. 

If to this sum we add the money to be paid to Mex- 
ico for new territories 15,000,000 

Extra pay for three months, allowed by Congress, 
July 19, 1848, to all soldiers, computed by the Se- 
cretary of War at from 80 to 100.000, engaged in 
the war, say . . , 2,000,000 

Claims, for which the Government is liable . . 3,250,000 

We have the sum of $101,180,000 

as the direct expenditure of the war. 



If we take another,! more specific method, we arrive at 
nearly the same result. 



Expenditures of 1845 - 6 over those of 1844 - 5, at 

tributable to Gen. Taylor's movements . 
Expenditures of army and navy proper. 1846-7, over 

those of previous years ..... 

Ditto, 1846-8 

Other increased expenditures of the War Depart 

ment over those of previous years 
Expenditures after June 30thJ! 1848, for return of 

troops, etc. etc 

For new territories 

Extra pay 

Claims .... .... 

By which we have 

as the sum of the positive expenditures, independ 
ently of the endless array of bounties, pensions 
and claims, Avhich will now pour like the Gulf 
Stream into Congress. 



$4,299,000 

30,777,000 
31,715,000 

15,217,000 

4,000,000 

15,000.000 

2.000.000 

3,250,000 

$106,258,000 



* See Official Documents. 
t See Official Documents. 



EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 93 

When to this sum, which has been a direct cost, we add 
the long array of indirect expenditures, that will stretch 
through the next half centurj, to reward the officers and 
soldiers engaged in this war ; the injury to the business of 
the country, by withdrawing so many millions of capital, 
and scattering it over a foreign land ; the destruction of so 
many thousand Hves, the loss of health to so many thousand 
more, thus sinking a large amount of the productive labor 
of the country ; the employment of multitudes in the barren 
and unproductive work of equipping the warrior, the war- 
horse, and the war-ship, with their enginery of death, be- 
sides the using of military stores and arms in arsenals ; and 
the interruption of business, consequent upon a state of war 
with one of our trading neighbors ; then we shall not think 
it extravagant to say, that the indirect cost of the war, were 
it ferretted out in all its particulars, would equal the direct 
expenditure, and amount to $100,000,000 more ; thus swell- 
ing the grand total to $200,000,000. 

To fortify these results, we will adduce some other con- 
siderations, relative to the finances of the war. Thus the 
mihtary and naval appropriations for the year ending June, 
1847, were $40,863,155.96 ; for the year ending June, 1848, 
$31,377,679.92 ; and, for the year ending June, 1849, $42, 
224,000 ; amounting, in all, to $114,466,835.88. A part of 
this sum goes for other expenditures than those of the Mex- 
ican hostilities ; but this sum does not include the price paid 
for California and New Mexico, the claims which the United 
States have obligated themselves to pay, and the bounty of 
160 acres of land* to every volunteer, making, as has been 

* " The Mexican War land-warrants will greatly outnumber those 
of the Revolution, or the war of 1812, as there are many more sol- 
diers. They are worth more, also, as there is a wider field allowed for 
selections. All the soldiers, who volunteered for twelve months, are 
entitled to one hundred and sixty acres of land, and the six months' 
volunteers are entitled to eighty acres. The wife, children, father, or 



94 EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 

computed, for 60,000 men 9,600,000 acres, or S6,000,000 in 
Treasury scrip, if the soldiers or their lieirs prefer to take 
the equivalent ; to say nothing of the large sums which were 
voted by State Legislatures, or contributed by individuals, to 
equip and furnish the volunteer regiments and their officers, 
and the thousands and the tens of thousands expended in 
welcoming back, in a festive manner, the survivors, on their 
return home. 

One Senator stated, in his official place, that the war was 
costing, at one period, at the rate of $500,000 per diem. 

Another said : " I am satisfied, that one year of this war 
will cost us about $100,000,000." He then cited the appro- 
priations, to justify such an inference. For the army alone : 

By the Act of the 13th Mav, 1846 .... $10,000,000 
Bv the Act of the 20th June ... . 12,000,000 

BV the Act of the 8th August 2,200,000 



$24,200,000 



Raised by loans, to meet war expenses 



By the Act of the 20th of July $10,000,000 

By the Act passed \vinter session, 1846-7 , . . 23,000,000 

Surplus in the treasury when the war began, consumed, 12,000,000 
The necessary appropriations, to be passed the same 

session 50,000,000 



Total,* $119,200,000 

Such were the expenditures made, or estimated, up to 

mother, of soldiers who died in the serA-ice, are allowed the same quan- 
tity of land." — Newhuryport Herald. 

* The Secretary of War says, Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 
30th Congress, 2d Session, p. 22 : " More than 60,000 claims have been 
presented under the Act of 11th Eeb. 1847, for bounty land and trea- 
sury scrip About 40,000 have been acted on and allowed ; 20,000 are 
now pending ; and it is estimated that there are 40,000 yet to be pre- 
sented." See, also, 30th Congress, 2d Session, Ex. Doc. No. 1, p. 369. 
90,000 claims had been presented, May, 1849, as we learnt by personal 
inquiry at the War Department. 



EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 95 

March 3, 1847, according to the uncontradicted statements 
of a United States Senator, made in his seat. 

A distinguished Governor of Tennessee, an advocate of 
the war, declared, in a public address, that the expenses 
would be ^8,000,000 per month. 

Colonel Doniphan's regiment of mounted dragoons con- 
sisted of 1,000 men. They volunteered for one year. When 
they returned home, each of them received ^560 for his pay, 
his horse, etc., and his land scrip in addition ; making, in all, 
the sum of $750,000. 

The claims of citizens of California against the United 
States, for money and supplies furnished by them during the 
war, amounted to $500,000 or $800,000.* 

The President, in a Message to Congress, dated July 6, 
1848, stated that the debt of the United States, before the 
war began, was $17,788,799.62; and that, in consequence 
of the war, it had been increased to $65,778,450.41 ; thus 
making the actual war debt $47,989,650.79. He then says, 
that $12,000,000 were to be paid to Mexico; and that the 
unliquidated claims, assumed by the United States, were 
$1,519,604.76, and the interest thereon; all which, added to 
the above sum, make the total of a direct debt of $61,509, 
255.55, in July, 1848, according to the admission of the 
President of the United States. 

From these and a variety of other facts of a similar char- 
acter, we draw the conclusion that this war cost the United 
States, directly and indirectly, at a moderate computation, 
$200,000,000, and that it cost Mexico, directly and indi- 
rectly, an equal sum. 

Suppose this sum were allotted to be paid by the people 
of this country at so much a poll, and reckon the population 
at 20,000,000, then each man, woman, and child, would 



* 30th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, Rep. Com. No. 75, pp. 2, 
7, 15, 50. 



96 EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 

be laid under a direct tax of $10, or say, on an average, 
each famil J, of $ 50. Or, if we suppose the actual expen- 
ses to come within the exceedingly moderate estimate of 
$100,000,000, we should then have a direct tax of $5 a 
head. And if the levy were made not according to heads, 
but purses, the burden would fall on men in proportion to 
their ability to pa} , and every man of substance would ask 
with an increased interest. What is the Mexican war ? 
"Why was it fought ? And what are its pleas and benefits ? 

As the war was ostensibly prosecuted, in part, for the 
ends of a suit at law, to recover a bad debt of an unwilling 
debtor, the result has taught the old lesson of the folly of 
going to law for a redress of grievances. The report of 
the commission that sat nearly two years on the United 
States' claims for Mexican spoliatioiis upon her commerce, 
states that 

The whole amount claimed was .... $11,850,578.49 

The two Mexican Commissioners agreed in allow- 
ance of only . - 630,406.76 

The two American Commissionei-s allowed . . 3,846,311.00 

Awarded by the Prussian umpire, Baron 

Keoune $1,586,745.00 

Agreed by all the Commissioners . . 439,393.00 



Total finally allowed . . $2,026,138.00 

This was the original legal and conceded debt of Mexico 
to the United States. Her finances were embarrassed, and 
she did not meet her engagements. Nations, hke individ- 
uals, find it hard to pay old debts ; and the older the harder. 
Witness France, witness the United States, witness Spain, 
witness every nation. But in 1843 a new treaty was en- 
tered into, and Mexico agreed to pay promptly and in 
regular instalments, principal and interest. But she was 
poor and revolutionary, and the Texan difficulties, and her 
jealousy of the United States, increased the embarrassment, 
and perhaps, as was natural, the indisposition to pay. So is 
it explicitly declared by Mr. Yoss, the American agent, in 



EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 97 

an official letter. Some of the instalments were prompt- 
ly paid, all were declared good, but procrastination prevailed 
in the Mexican councils, and the United States naturally 
became indignant and impatient. This is one of the final 
and alleged causes of the war, that Mexico would not pay 
her honest debts. But even if she did not, it was a costly 
method to collect the dues, to send Generals Taylor and 
Scott, and Commodores Conner, Perry, Sloat, and Stockton, 
as sheriffs, with such an expensive posse comitatus to levy 
on the Mexican estate and pay the debt by such an execution. 
" It was," to use the homely phrase of the American philo- 
sopher, "paying too dear for the whistle." Then, too, it 
was not for us, who have av aited long decades of years for 
the old European monarchies to pay up for the spoliations 
they committed on our commerce ; and who, even when they 
did pay, delayed promptly to disburse to the private claim- 
ants ; it was not for us, who have in too many States repu- 
diated our debts ; it was not for us, the stronger republic, 
to force to sharp practice and summary punishment, our 
younger, weaker sister republic. It was not a just or a 
magnanimous act, and, — what is mainly relevant to the 
object of this paragraph, — it was not a profitable business 
transaction ; for we now pay for the war, pay for the new 
territory, and pay the claimants. 

The master-evil of war-expenditures, however, is not, as 
before hinted, so much in the money that is lost, as the 
spirit that is left beliind. This point has been so ably set 
forth by the Democratic Review of February, 1847, that we 
need not apologize for quoting its language. " It is not 
alone the war, and the expense, great though it be, that is 
to be dreaded. We are rich and industrious, and having 
plenty of resources, can pay any sums. A protracted war 
is, however, building up a great military interest heretofore 
unknown to our institutions. The great peril which destroyed 
Mexico we are about to encounter. The long Spanish war 
9 



98 EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 

of independence stifled her industry and smothered her 
commerce. No interest flourished but the military, and her 
liberties ultimately perished in its giant gripe. This in- 
terest, having no sympathy with industrial pursuits, in its 
nature aristocratic, is already rapidly growing among us. 
A few years only will consolidate its strength, and spread 
its influence through all the ramifications of contractors and 
employees, dependent upon war expenditures. Such an in- 
terest is one to be dreaded, perhaps, more than any other, 
when we reflect upon the materials of strife within us, the 
rancor of party spirit, and the recklessness of fanaticism." 

A furtlier consideration which Avill impress upon us more 
vividly the wickedness of "the waste of treasure" in war, is 
the various beneficial uses to which such mighty sums of 
money might be devoted. If " moneys,*^ as the old Roman 
said, "are the sinews of war," so are they also the sinews 
of peace. K the "dollar" be not "almighty," and the god 
of this world, it is at least an essential instrument in pro- 
moting every good word and work among mankind. Money 
builds the city, and beautifies the country. Money fills the 
sails and turns the water-wheel. Money tunnels the moun- 
tains, and barricades the rivers. Money speeds the loom, 
and propels the cars, and operates the telegraph. Money 
gives food to the well and medicine to the sick. Money 
clothes our bodies and raises our houses. Money erects 
the schoolhouse and the sanctuary, and puts a teacher in 
one and a preacher in the other. Money multiplies the 
Scriptures, and heralds the blessed news of salvation from 
clime to clime. It is money that is needed at this moment, 
as the great cooperator, to send civilization and Chris- 
tianity to those who are now sitting in darkness and the 
shadow of death, as well as to re-civilize civilization itself, 
and to re-Christianize Christendom. Money, money, is the 
call of the educator, the reformer, the philanthropist, the 
missionaiy ; and it is not a selfish call ; for by this power 



EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 99 

the printing, and teacliing, and speaking, and exploring, and 
travelling, are physically sustained, and " seed is given to 
the sower, and bread to the eater." 

In this light, consider that the $200,000,000 of money 
squandered in this unjust, unnecessary, and unconstitutional 
war, would found a library in each of the ten largest cities 
of the United States, namely. New York, Philadelphia, 
Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Brooklyn, 
Albany, and Washington, which should contain as many 
volumes as the largest library on the continent of Europe, 
and endow it with a princely fund sufficient to keep it in 
repair, and enrich it with the accessions of all living Uter- 
ature from every nation, thus opening inexhaustible foun- 
tains of knowledge for all future generations, and placing 
the interests of learning on a foundation worthy of the first 
republic on earth. 

Or, suppose this sum devoted to the endowment of com- 
mon schools, academies, and colleges, of agricultural, reform- 
atory, scientific, normal, and professional seminaries of in- 
struction; and to the establishment of Lyceums, Lowell 
Institutes, Adult Schools, Teacher's Institutes, and then a 
magnificent apparatus of means and agencies of every de- 
scription would be provided to cultivate what the poet has 

called 

" Acres of untilled brains," 

to develope the mighty mind and the great heart of our 
America, and to prevent the hourly repetition of that pa- 
thetic " tragedy," of which the prose-poet speaks, " that there 
should one man die ignorant who had the capacity for 
knowledge." 

Imagine such a sum employed in the industrial and ma- 
terial improvements of a country, to give security to its 
navigation and commerce ; to facilitate domestic and foreign 
intercourse; to bind city to city, and State to State, and 
nation to nation, in harmonious cooperation ; to develope the 



100 EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 

physical and mineral resources of the earth, and make her 
not the step-mother, but the own mother, of her children ; 
and how many millions of naked would be clothed, and how 
many millions of the hungry would be fed, and how much 
time would be redeemed from inexorable toil to devote to 
the higher culture of our nature, and to the making not of 
money, but of m6n, worthy to be called men ! 

Or, were it expended in the fine and the useful arts, to 
join everywhere in eternal union, beauty and utility; to 
stimulate and reward invention; to carry all the sciences, 
and, consequently, all the arts depending upon them, to a 
higher state of perfection; to multiply in the cities and 
habitations of a free people the rarest productions of archi- 
tecture, painting, sculpture, — the works of genius baptized 
into the name of Christ; how ample would be the in- 
strumentalities for developing such a national character as 
the world has never before seen, except in the dream of 
some rapt sage, or the vision of some inspired prophet ! 

Let it be consecrated on the altar of philanthropy, and 
what chain would not be broken, what prisoner not vis- 
ited, what sick untended, what beggar unrelieved, what in- 
sane given over, what idiot abandoned, what blind, or deaf, 
or dumb, or maimed uncared for, what inebriate unreformed, 
what licentious not purified, and what criminal uninstructed 
and unrecovered ! 

Or, propose the sublimest of the works done, or to be done 
in this world, and the one in a manner comprehending aU the 
other enterprises referred to, we mean the Christianizing of 
the whole world, the sanctification of the five human races ; 
and in the interest alone of this gigantic war-bill we should 
find abundant means, so far as pecuniary resources are con- 
cerned, to set in operation forty-eight majestic missionary and 
Bible societies, as large as the American Board, and the 
British and Foreign Bible Society, to work with omnipres- 
ent and almost omnipotent power in every land, and shed the 



EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 101 

light of divine truth and mercy in every benighted heart and 
habitation, and plant the churches of the Redeemer on every 
hill-top and in every valley from pole to pole. Call it not 
folly or fanaticism to imagine such a Millennium. It was 
once the hope of prophecy ; it was later the vision of Christ ; 
and it shall one day be the Kingdom of God on earth. 

If this be our strength and glory to raise money, and ex- 
pend it in wicked and wasteful wars, tormenting our neigh- 
bors and ourselves, then is our strength weakness, and our 
glory shame. If a whole nation will expend without reluct- 
ance their kingly treasures, (that might constitute the moral 
lever to raise the earth,) in the arts of human butchery and 
misery, in conquest and invasion, what title has it to be 
called a Christian nation ? It has none. It is a heathen 
people with a Christian cloak ; heathen in spirit, and heathen 
in practice. We may cry, " Lord, Lord," but the use of holy 
words cannot save the workers of iniquity from the condem- 
nation of the Judge of all. 

In concluding this chapter, a practical question suggests 
itself ; how shall the masses of a nation be made to feel the 
abomination of spending hundreds of millions in war ? and 
how shall the future be exempted from the grinding injustice 
of having its labor and property mortgaged in advance, and 
forever crippled by the war-debts of the past ? In one way, 
and we believe in one way only. Let these untold millions 
be paid at once by a direct tax. Pay as you go, should be 
the rule of nations as well as of individuals. We have no 
liglit to make our children settle with their toil and tears the 
debts of our folly. Now the war-expenses are not felt, be- 
CMMse they come obliquely and stealthily, and are so mixed 
up with tariffs and indirect taxes, and the consumption of the 
proceeds of the public lands, that few understand their ope- 
ration. l>ut apply the principle of a direct tax, and every 
man in the community would inquire into the merits and de- 
merits of a war, and would not fail to clamor loudly and 

9* 



tOS THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 

effectually against all wars of aggression, invasion, conquest, 
and slavery. We are happy to strengthen our position by 
the opinion of one of the ablest Judges on the Bench of the 
Supreme Court of the United States.* " All wars should be 
accomplished by a system of direct and internal taxation. 
Nothing short of this can show, in addition to sacrifice of life, 
what we pay for miUtary glory. This was the poHcy in the 
better days of the Republic." 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 

♦' Seek, — burn, — fire, — kill, — slay." 

" Food for powder, food for powder." — Shakspeare. 

Physicians are accustomed to make an examination, af- 
ter the disease has proved fatal, in order to ascertain more 
clearly its seat, causes, and diagnosis. It is not a grateful 
task to enter into the bloody chambers, where life was mys- 
teriously hidden ; but they do it for the sake of the living, 
and to prevent the repetition of like effects. The moralist 
and Christian, too, are sometimes obliged to make, so to 
speak, post mortem examinations, for however painful it may 
be, to live over again scenes of violence and wrong, and to follow 
the track of armies, yet they feel it to be a duty if they can 
by this means obtain powerful evidences in behalf of the cause 
they advocate. They wish thus to call the surgeon, as well 
as the financier, to testify to the evils of war, and to invoke 

* Judge McLean. 



THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 103 

the hospital no less than the exchange, to pronounce its con- 
demning sentence. 

But here, as in the matter of war-expenditures, the very 
immensity of the suffering wounds, maiming, sickness, death, 
caused by war, — staggers our conception, and paralyzes our 
imagination. When we read that a thousand men died in 
battle, that two thousand were sick in the hospital, we no 
more realize that infinite sum of misery than we do the length 
of eternity. But let only one image of personal agony rise 
vividly before us, — the active, hopeful, widely-endeared 
young man, reeling headlong from his horse, crushed and 
bleeding by the terrible cannon ball, — or the father on whom 
a whole family depends, languishing month after month in a 
foreign clime, anxious, weak, pained, dying by inches, with 
no hand of wife or child to bathe the fevered temples, or min- 
ister the healing cup ; and we have a deeper impression of 
the unutterable miseries of war than solid pages of statistics 
could give us. And if we could then multiply one by many, 
and consider what a single hostile meeting of armies is, and 
does, could be in it, and yet not o/"it, could view it as a self- 
possessed spectator, could see all the cruel machines of death 
in " awful activity," the earth trembling with the thunder of 
artillery, the air rent with shrieks and shouts, the light of the 
sun shut out by sulphurous clouds, the waters running crim- 
son with the heart's blood of thousands, every shot carrying 
away a limb or a hfe, every charge sweeping to the dust hun- 
dreds of poor wounded, dying creatures, we should pronounce 
a battle the very incarnation of hell on earth. 

But men do not know what war is, how much of all that 
is most fearful in pain, and terror, and suffering, and death, is 
as surely drawn in its train, as any cause leads to any effect. 
Men at home who make war, do not know what they are doing, 
Avhat mountains of misery and sin they are heaping upon 
their fellow men ; for if they did know and had not liearts of 
flints, they would say, sooner than do this thing, this infinite 
evil. " perish our right arm from its socket, palsied be our 



104 THE DESTRUCTION OF HU3IAN LIFE. 

tongue in our mouth !" Men in camp and field become mail- 
ed and triple-mailed in their sensibilities by their dreadful 
familiarity with exhibitions of suffering ; and whereas they 
would once have fainted at -R-itnessing the slightest surgical 
operation, they can at last look unmoved on the cai-nage of 
Waterloo. So that the history of war never has been written, 
and from the necessity of the case, never can be. We may 
get a ghmpse here and there, where its thunder-clouds are 
parted, and we look upon the ground strewed with the dead 
and dying ; or where we walk through its long range of hos- 
pital wards, and hundi'eds of ghastly faces start up at the 
sound of our steps ; but its physical, like its other evils, are 
too vast to be comprehended by a finite mind. 

We are accustomed to speak of the late war between Mex- 
ico and the United States, as if it were the conflict of two 
soulless generalizations, two historical or geographical bodies, 
that pitched their camp and arrayed their battle, one against 
the other. The terms are corporate, pohtical, and insensible. 
Happy indeed were it, if it were the meeting of names on 
on paper, and not of living men in the bloody field. 
Happy were it, even if the old custom of more chiv- 
alrous days were revived, and they, the historical personages 
who make the war, should themselves do the fighting, king 
meeting king, or president, president, either in their own per- 
sons, or in the representatives, and substitutes of their res- 
pective choice and country. Rivers of blood would thus be 
spared, and the question subjected to an equally fair mode of 
arbitrament and decision. But the nature of war, as it is now 
carried on, is far different. It is the personal conflict of 
thousands of Mexican men against thousands of United States' 
men. It is the raising of hand against hand, and the baring 
of hundreds of human bosoms to the awful hail of balls, and 
sabre strokes, and lance and bayonet thrusts. It is upon bodies 
keenly sensitive to the least wound, in every vein, and nerve, 
and fibre of which the Almighty has set the seal of his crea- 
tive wisdom and goodness, and which he has made capable 



THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 105 

of vast enjoyment, and suiFering ; it is upon head and heart, 
upon life and limb, that the braises and lacerations come, 
smiting, crushing, snapping the bones as if they were worth 
no more than pipe-stems, rending open the flesh as if it were 
the meat of the shambles, and battering to pieces the image 
of God as if it were the common clay of the potter. It is 
not Mexico that suffers by the war ; it is some thousands of 
her people, many of them innocent men, women, and children, 
who happened to come within the reach of the destroying ball 
and bomb, in the battle and siege. It is not the United States, 
that has been visited by pain, grief, loss of life, of health, 
friends, morals, through the instrumentality of this conflict ; 
but it is certain men, families, living hearts, suffering bodies, 
agonized souls. In looking then at the tremendous devasta- 
tions of war, let us remember that they all fall on individual 
human beings, and not on soulless corporations, insensible 
nations, or geographical names. 

This destruction of human life in any aspect in which we 
can view it, is a complex evil. It has branches of mischief 
shooting in all directions. Existence is the free gift of God, 
and not lightly or unnecessarily to be trifled with or squan- 
dered. Every man born in a civilized community, reared to 
manhood, and armed and equiped with the requisite training, 
experience, and principle to act well his part in society, is to 
be considered as so much capital, invested for the best good 
of the land he lives in, and paying the rich percentage of 
usefulness and reciprocity to a large circle of fellow creatures. 
When prematurely taken away, before he has lived out half 
his days, by accident or sickness, we feel that it is an inscru- 
table Providence. But when by suicide he cuts short his 
probation, or when by the exposures and dangers of war, 
another species of suicide in one sense, he dies before his 
time, there is a great and positive loss to every interest of 
the community. Here is a world of work of every kind to 
do, the season is pressing, time does not halt, the harvest is 



106 THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 

white unto the sickle, but the laborers that should enter into 
this rich and varied field, and reap fruit unto eternal life, are 
taken from their families, and far away are made " food for 
powder," or mowed down by disease, as if they were so many 
worthless animals. Little calculation is made to save their 
lives, except as constituting one of the prime materials for 
war. In making good a battle or forcing a siege, the aim 
is not to save the men but to gain the victory. Napoleon 
never he^tated to sacrifice any number of Hves, provided he 
could thereby carry his point. Every general, m order to be 
successful, must adoj^t more or less the same principle. But 
every man that is offered upon the bloody i)lain to the god of 
battles, is one heart, one head, one life less, to do the great 
work for which men were placed temporarily on the earth, 
— to glorify their Maker, and benefit one another. So much 
has been subtracted out of the most valuable capital of a 
country, which no money can replace. A nation's hfe has 
been abridged ; a nation's heart has bled some great drops of 
blood. Human life is the basis and condition to all other 
good, and in proportion as any considerable amount of it is 
violently abstracted from the community, do all the great in- 
terests of humanity receive a sensible shock. 

In immediate connection with the above considerations up- 
on the evils resultmg from the loss of life in war, it should be 
added that it has especially a barbarizing influence upon the 
humane and moral sentiments of a people. This is true even 
of the wholesale mortality produced by the plague, cholera, 
famine, earthquake, or volcano. The heart of a community 
is apparently stunned by the frequent presence of death. De- 
foe, in his history of the plague in London, records with graph- 
ic simplicity the dreadful brutality and wickedness of the 
survivors, even while they were admonished every instant 
that death was at the door, if not rioting in the house. Much 
more does the w^aste of human life by agencies of man's o^vn 
choosing and operating, harden the heart, and paralyze the 



THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 107 

conscience. War is the most formidable of these agencies. 
It is " Death on the pale horse," seen by the Revelator,* " and 
hell followed with him." " And power was given unto them 
over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and 
wdth hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth." 
In proportion as a Christian civilization has made its benefi- 
cent way among men, it has raised the value of man, shown 
his worth, and dignity, and set a higher price upon his life. 
Gross and savage customs have been ameliorated, or done 
away. All that relates to human comfort, and welfare, has 
been invested with a new and sublime interest, because of 
the nature and destiny of the being in whom it centres. But 
war, waged under the most favorable circumstances, and with 
all possible palliations and neutralizing influences, arrests 
these humane movements, revives the barbarian estimate of 
life, and all that appertains to it, and strides on to its infernal 
revelry of blood and glory, though it send the voice of lamen- 
tation and woe through the homes of a whole people. The 
oft-repeated spectacle of death under every shocking mode of 
agony, mutilation, carnage, and disease, steels the heart of 
the spectator. The news of it, also, sent far and wide on the 
wings of a war-literature and a martial press, produces a de- 
moralizing influence upon a w^hole nation. Human life be- 
comes cheap in view of these immense butcheries, and then 
human virtue too is undervalued. Men care less what they 
say, or do, or how they live. A spirit of recklessness is en- 
gendered. Crimes increase in number and in turpitude. Of- 
fences against person and life are multiplied by the contagion 
of the camp, and the brilliant examples of the battle-field. 
Many are ready to dispute the maxim, that one murder does 
make a villain, if millions make a hero. They emulate the 
daring spirit, and the summary Indian justice of war, that de- 
mands eye for eye, and tooth for tooth, and life for life. A 
whole Christian people may thus be sensibly degraded by the 

* Rev. 6: 8. 



108 THE DESTRUCTION OP HUJVIAN LIFE. 

waste of human life, and the means by which it is effected, 
and fall to a lower standard of morals and public order. This 
is not one of the least evils of war. 

It is quite as difficult to ascertain accurately the mortality, 
as it is the cost of the Mexican war. Persons of different 
views and temperaments will give different estimates. 
All that we can accomplish in either of these matters, is 
an approximation to the reality. National governments 
do not feel it to be a duty to render such an account 
of their doings, that the people at lai'ge can see how much 
is the cost in life, limb, and dollars of their ''glory." 
No open and intelligible debt-and-credit account is kept. 
Besides, the books cannot be " posted up," till many years 
after the war. We have to glean therefore, the census 
of death from many unsatisfactory sources, but we shall 
endeavor to avoid the common sin of exaggeration, and 
to justify all inferences by well-authenticated facts. 

There were some causes which rendered the late con- 
flict peculiarly fatal to life. The scene of strife was not, 
as in the Revolutionary war, that of 1812, or the Florida 
war, within our own borders. We were invaders of a 
foreign land. We dai-ed the burning Line. A long march 
by land, or a voyage by sea, transported the combatants 
to the scene of action. Their food, climate, habits 
were changed. If sick or wounded, they were too far 
from home for wife or sister to visit them, too far to 
be easily restored to their friends. The process of accli- 
mation had to be encountered under the most unfavorable 
circumstances. Fever, vomito, dysentery, erysipelas, and 
other disorders raged among the troops with terrible viru- 
lence. Far more perished in the hospitals than in the 
field. The deaths at the city of Mexico among the Ameri- 
can soldiery averaged a thousand a month for a considerable 
time after they occupied " the halls of the Montezumas, " 
and three or four hundi'ed a month afterwards. The 



THE DESTRUCTION OP HUMAN LIFE. 109 

wounded very generally died by the effects of the climate, 
and the access of sickness. The fact, too, that so large 
a portion of the troops were raw volunteers, wholly unused 
to a soldier's life, and often unwilling to submit to the 
necessary sanitary regulations of the army, accounts in 
part for the almost incredible expenditure of life. Many, 
also, that escaped death brought home broken constitu- 
tions, and hacked and shattered frames, and will linger 
out a species of living death the rest of their days. The 
dissipation of the camp, too, prostrated hundreds, and re- 
turned many a once athletic young man to his friends 
decrepit in mind and body. 

Wliile on the side of the Mexicans, (whose woes and 
losses now at least, if not before, we may consider and 
regret, since we are at peace, and friends again,) the loss 
in battle was very great from the precision and rapidity 
of the American fire, and the greater number of troops 
they had in the field. They were also ill provided with 
the necessary supplies of food and clothing, and camp 
equipments. The army of Santa Anna was in great des- 
titution before the battle of Buena Vista; and after its 
retreat, the road-side was encumbered for sixty leagues with 
those who were dying of hunger and thirst. We have 
no accurate statements of the number of soldiers on the side 
of Mexico engaged in the war; but we should set the 
estimate no doubt within very moderate bounds, if we 
should say, that three times the number compared with our 
troops were in the field, and that the loss in battle averaged 
three times as much ; and that the loss in battle and sickness 
together was as much or more than that of the Americans. 

The Northern States, according to one statement, fur- 
nished 22,136 volunteers, and the Southern States 43,213, 
in all, 65,340. The Northerners generally enlisted for the 
war ; the Southerners for one year or a less term. 

The Report of the Adjutant General, April 5, 1848, 

10 



XIO THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 

to the Secretary of war * " makes the whole number of 
the regular army employed everywhere in the prosecution 
of the war, inclusive of December 1847, about 26,690, 
besides a battalion of marines, (350.) " " Twenty-nine 
thousand men have been recruited since the 13 th of May, 
1846." The whole number of volunteers mustered in the 
service, from May, 1846 was 71,309, of which 56,926 were 
finally accepted. The naval force was 8,000 at least. 
When to these numbers we add at least 5,000 teamsters, 
and " the large number of recruits, " which Gen. Jones 
says, "arrived at Vera Cruz and other places in Mexico," 
and were never reported or accounted for, we deem it a 
yery moderate statement to make, that 100,000 Americans 
were first and last in Mexico during the war. f 

Suppose that only one man in five of the 100,000 men, 
who, first and last have been in the war, has perished, 
and the very moderate computation gives us 20,000 dead. 
It has often been stated in Congressional speeches, that 
the American loss could not be less than that number, 
and we believe it to have been even far more. 

The hospital often proved more destructive even than 
the battle-field. 

On Sept. 3, 1846, Gen. Taylor wrote from Camargo, 
" there has been great sickness and mortality in some 
of the volunteer regiments. " 

He writes on June 30, 1847, at the camp near Monterey, 
" it is confidently hoped that the troops in that camp (near 
Mier) will escape, in a gi-eat measure, such excessive sick- 
ness as prevailed last year at Camargo, and which is now 
beginning to be felt there. " 

From the same place he says, on July 27, 1847, " great 

* 30th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, Ex. Doc. No. 36. 

t In August, 1 846, Congress authorized an increase of the Navy, 
from 7,500 to 10,000, but owing to various circumstances it was not 
inci-easod to more than 8,000. 



THE DESTRUCTION OF HITMAN LIFE. Ill 

sickness and mortality have prevailed among the volunteer 
troops in front of Saltillo. " 

He adds the following, in a letter dated Camp, near Mon- 
terey, Aug. 10, 1847 : " There continues to be much sickness 
among the new troops, both at JNIier and Buena Vista, ac- 
companied by an unusual share of mortality. Nearly twenty- 
five per cent, of the force present is disabled, at this moment, 
by disease." 

We see, by these declarations, that the great warrior 
dreaded the sweeping scythe of disease, far more than he 
did the sword of the enemy. Indeed he declared, in a 
speech made at Port Hudson, La., on occasion of the return 
of the volunteers, reported in the newspapers, 1848, that, 
" of those who have died in active service in Mexico, the 
proportion of those cut down by disease to those who fell on 
the battle-field, is about Jive to one ! " 

Besides the losses on the field and in the hospital, on 
Gen. Taylor's line of operations, many perished by the hand 
of violence, — either in private, or by armed parties of gue- 
rillas. 

The sickness on the Vera Cruz line was even more for- 
midable than on that of the Rio Grande. It was a more 
southern latitude. The tierra caliente, or hot region, of the 
sea-coast, and the tierra templada, or table land, of the inte- 
rior, and the valley of Mexico, were all found to be fatal to 
the American soldier. Gen. Scott writes from Puebla, June 
4, 1847, as follows : " The effective strength of this army 
has been surprisingly reduced. Besides the discharge of 
seven regiments, and two independent companies, of old 
volunteers, we had to leave in hospital about 1,000 men at 
Vera Cruz, as many sick and wounded at Jalapa, and 200 
sick at Perote. Here we have on the sick report 1,017. 
Not a corps has made a forced march, except in the pursuit 
after the battle of Cerro Gordo, and every possible attention 
has been given to the health of the troops. The general 



112 THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 

sickness may be attributed to several causes: 1. Tlie great 
contrast in climates, above and below Cerro Gordo ; 2. The 
insufficiency of clothing, but little having arrived when the 
army marched from Vera Cruz ; and 3. The want of salt 
meats, the troops not having had any oftener than one day 
in nine, since we reached the elevated country ; as our insuf- 
ficient means of transportation allowed us to bring up only 
small quantities of bacon and no mess pork. The prevailing 
diseases have been chills and fevers, and diarrhoea." 

On July 25th, Gen. Scott reported the sick at Puebla at 
87 officers and 2,215 men ; in all, 2,302. 

!RIansfield, in his History of the Mexican War, states that 
Gen. Scott left Puebla, on Aug. 7-10, with 10,738 men, 
and that 3,261 were left in garrison and in hospitals. Of the 
last, the largest part were in hospital, where there were, at 
one time, no less than 1,900 sick ! Of these, 700 found their 
graves at Puebla ! 

With 3,217 sick in the hospitals at Vera Cruz, Jalapa, 
Perote, and Puebla, early in June, at the very beginning of 
the sickly season, and 2,302 at Puebla alone, the last of 
July, and 1,900 in August, we can imagine what must have 
been the later scenes of the same summer, as the army 
fought its way, through quadruple its own numbers, to the 
capital of the country. The accounts of the mortality there, 
before referred to, thus become perfectly credible. The 
names have been published of no less than 700 men, who 
died at Perote in a few months. Even on Dec. 4, 1847, 
Gen. Scott stated officially, that there were 2,041 sick, exclu- 
sive of officers, in the city of Mexico. 

Let us now consider what have been the losses of indivi- 
dual regiments and companies, and how they sustain the 
above estimate. 

Of 80 Sappers and Miners, who left West Point for the 
battle-fields of Mexico, only 24 returned home ; all the rest 
having found graves in that distant land. 



THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 113 

Of the 730 in the Ninth Regiment of Infantry, that left 
Fort Adams, in 1847, there were but 105 or 106 that re- 
turned home, in 1848 : 14 died on the voyage from Vera 
Cruz home, between July 11th and August 14th. 

The South Carohna Regiment, of 1,100, had, at the end 
of nine months, only 80 or 90 remaining, to enter with Scott 
the city of Mexico. " The destruction of life in Napoleon's 
march to Moscow did not equal this." 

Col. William B. Campbell's First Regiment of Tennessee 
volunteers, returned only 350 of the 1,000 it carried into 
Mexico. The average loss was 50 men a month. 

" The North Carolina Regiment," says an officer writing 
from Buena Vista, in Sept. 1847, " was paid off the last of 
August on muster-rolls made two months previous ; and 
almost every fiffh man had died since muster. The Missis- 
sippi Regiment had suffered still more. Companies, that 
came into the field 85 and 90 strong, now number scarce 30 
men on parade." 

Another oificer writes from the city of Mexico : " Of 
nearly 400 men, who left Columbus (Georgia) in the five 
companies, we have not more than 40 fit for duty. About 
35 are in hospital at Jalapa, and the remainder in that of 
Perote." 

Of 648 men, in the regiment commanded by Gen. Pierce, 
only 120 remained fit for service in the city of Mexico. 

Col. Baker, Member of Congress from Illinois, declared 
in the House of Representatives, that his regiment of volunr 
teers of 820, lost 100 in six months, in the Rio Grande Val- 
ley ; dismissed 200 more, to die by the way, or find their 
way home, with constitutions broken down. He also said, 
that the bones of nearly 2,000 young men, in whose veins 
flowed some of the best blood of the country, who had never 
seen the face of an enemy, were now resting in the mould on 
the banks of that river. 

The Adjutant General, in answer to a resolution of Con-, 
10* 



114 THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 

gi'ess, reported, Feb. 1847, that of the volunteers who had 
joined the army up to that time, there had, in a period of 
from sixty to ninety days, 331 deserted; 76 been killed in 
battle ; died of disease, 637 ; and discharged, in consequence 
of sickness or disability, between 2,000 and 3,000 men ; or, 
as stated by Mr. Hudson, in a speech in the House, Feb. 15, 
1847, a loss of 20 per cent, in about two months and a half, 
or about eighty per cent, a year. 

But it is needless to accumulate such reports. The con- 
clusion is obvious. Many put the loss at 20,000, on the part 
of the United States ; others raise it to 30,000 ; we are safe 
in saying it was between 20,000 and 25,000. 

And, as we have already seen, if we turn to the other side, 
we can have no doubt that Mexico suffered an equal mor- 
tality. For if the sickness, which was great even among 
the natives, was less, the destruction in battle was treble or 
quadruple, if the American bulletins speak the truth. 

Owing to the limited medical and surgical appointments of 
the Mexican armies, and their poverty of means, great mul- 
titudes of the wounded perished. When we have added to 
the above list the deaths by disease, we can have no doubt 
that 20,000 is a very moderate estimate for the Mexican 
waste of life. Gen. Scott computed that 7,000 Mexican offi- 
cers and men were killed and wounded in the several battles 
in the vicinity of the capital alone. 

We conclude, from these various considerations, that the 
mortality on both sides, during the two years of the exist- 
ence of the war, reached no less than 40,000 ; or 20,000 a 
year, or 10,000 annually on each side. The reports of the 
generals, the climate, the great number of the battles, sieges, 
skirmishes, being about twenty-eight, the proportion lost in 
single regiments and companies, and the great proportion 
that died by sickness, assure us that this immense loss of 
human life, with aU its attendant e\dls, and woes, and pains, 
is chargeable upon the authors and abettors of this stupen- 
dous system of legalized murder. 



THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. 115 



CHAPTER X. 

THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. 

" Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood ; 
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy, — 
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips, 
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue ; — 
A curse shall liji^ht upon the limbs of men." — Shakspeare. 

But besides the catalogue of the dead, there is the great 
army of the wounded and the broken down, whose lot is 
often more pitiable than death. 

We find either reported, or moderately computed, Americans 

wounded 3,968 

Mexicans 7,210 



Total 11,178 

Add as many more sick and otherwise disabled . . . 11,178 



Total 22,356 

No one who read the newspapers during the progress of 
the war, can doubt that we set the number very much 
within bounds when we estimate the wounded and the 
ruined in health on both sides, at 22,000. For scarcely a 
public print came to hand that did not record the ghastly 
return of the once robust young man, the horrid apparition 
of gaunt, and maimed, and cadaverous forms, that were once 
called fathers, or brothers, or sons. A returned volunteer 
at Brighton, Mass., could not make for a long time his own 
mother know him, as his appearance was so much changed, 
and he had lost his voice. He came home but to rest his 
anguished head on her bosom, and die. 

The reasons have already been given why such ravages 
were made by disease ; but the number of Americans 



116 THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. 

wounded in the battles, who survived to return home, was 
less than in most wars ; first, because the barbarity of the 
Mexican troops instigated them often to kill the prostrate 
foe when opportunity offered ; then, because the slightly 
wounded in that hot climate, were often snatched away by 
the intervention of some disease ; and, finally, because the 
distance was so great home, both by land and sea, that many 
perished in the act of removal. The forces of the United 
States had not time to be acclimated; and at the very 
period when that process was in its most critical stage, they 
were hurried on with all the daring impetuosity of the 
American character, from march to march, and from battle 
to battle, travelling in some instances on foot forty miles in 
a day. Col. Baker, of the Illinois volunteers, and also a 
member of Congress, stated in his place in the House, during 
the session of 1846-7, that "of 2,400 Ohioans who left 
Cincinnati in June, 1846, 900 are no longer in their regi- 
ments, — dead, or with ruined constitutions. The number 
of dead, dying, or lost, will make about the proportion of 
forty per cent in one year. Out of 18,000 volunteers of 
June and July, 1846, 7,000 are already dead or gone." 
There were at one time in a single hospital in New Orleans, 
680 of the returned volunteers sick. 

In attempting to form any adequate idea of the sufferings 
of the sick and wounded in hospitals, we must consider that 
they are away from home, and often home-sick ; that they 
are in general nursed, if nursed at all, not by the natural 
kindred of home and neighborhood, or by the tender hand 
of woman, but by strangers and men, and, perhaps, foreign- 
ers, Avho were often indeed more kind than their own 
people ; that medicines are often wanting ; delicacies that 
win a sick appetite are unknown ; ill-conditioned and unven- 
tilated rooms, poor furniture, bedding, and changes of gar- 
ments, and the lack of the indescribable atmosphere of home; 
uneducated and inexperienced physicians and surgeons, ac- 



THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. 117 

cording to the testimony of high official authority ; the as- 
semblage together of large numbers of the sick and wound- 
ed, with all their groans, insanity, loathsomeness, contagion, 
and scenes of death, in large apartments ; the morbid imagin- 
ation generated and aggravated by such environments of 
discomfort and danger. When we have summoned up these 
and similar circumstances of the war-hospital, we wonder 
not that death resorts thither as to the chosen hall of his 
revelry, and the inscription seen by Dante, in his awful 
vision, might well be supposed to be written over the door, 

" No hope to those that enter here." 

A writer, speaking of a large number of discharged volun- 
teers sent home by the ship "Virginia," and dating his 
letter Nov. 13, 1846, Balize, La., says, " Half these were 
wounded or sick, some having lost their legs, others their 
arms, others being wounded in their arms and legs. WiU 
you believe me when I tell you that with all these sick and 
wounded, and dying men, not a surgeon or nurse was sent 
along to attend upon them, not a particle of medicine fur- 
nished, not a patch of linen for dressing wounds ? Such is 
the truth, and such, I understand, is the usual manner in 
which the men who have been out to fight our battles, but 
who are unfortunate enough to get wounded or become sick, 
are sent home, like old horses turned out to die." 

The testimony of another eye-witness is as follows, — and 
we should bear it in mind that most American writers and 
correspondents who went into Mexico, were advocates, de- 
fenders, or at least paUiators of the war: — "I left our sick 
at Matamoras yesterday. It makes one's heart bleed to 
witness the sufferings of these poor fellows. In camp, you 
must know, few of the conveniences considered necessary 
to the ill at home, can be had. A man gets sick, and he is 
carried to the hospital with his blanket and his knapsack. 



11$ THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. 

Bed and bedding there are none, and as the country is 
destitute of kimber, bedsteads are not to be had. A blanket 
and the ground is, therefore, the couch upon which the 
volunteer lies sick, and dies, if he does not recover. If he 
dies, the same blanket forms his winding-sheet and cofl&n, — 
plank is not to be had." 

A shell from one of Gen. Scott's batteries struck the 
Charity Hospital at Vera Cruz, in the siege of that city, 
penetrated the roof, bursting in the room where the sick 
inmates were lying, and killed twenty-three. 

At the siege of Puebla, the less severely sick and wound- 
ed of the hospital were obliged to take an active part in 
protecting the American quarters ; and the list of the phy- 
sician and surgeon numbered, according to the report of 
Col. Childs, 1,800. 

A young soldier writes to The Philadelphia Inquirer, from 
Perote, in November, 1847, "Oh, the misery of this hos- 
pital life, who would believe it ! * * * 

" Imagination cannot picture to you a military hospital. 
It cannot be given to you on paper. Tall, bony skeletons, 
torn and racked by disease, struggling to make a step, totter- 
ing along like Hamlet's ghost! A year ago they were 
among friends smiling upon them. Here they are sick and 
dying in this Lazar-house of slaves, once freemen! See 
there! keep back, and let that once manly, now decrepit 
form pass between the arch. His assistants can hardly sup- 
port him. That arch he is passing for the last time. To- 
morrow sees him borne along on the barrow. He looks 
around, the tear glistening in his eye, but, his manly spirit 
yet unsubdued, brushes it away. That deep sigh proclaims 
all hope fled. His shattered mind dwells on by-gone days. 
He raises his sunken eyes to heaven, and mutters all his 
earthly joys, — Home, — Father, — Mother ! Others, in 
idiocy or raving lunacy, sink into the slumbers of death. 
Others, with the loss of a leg or an arm, or perhaps both, 



THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. 119 

are still thankful that they have life. Aiid there are no 
charms or enjoyment to make them feel their loss. Fame, 
glory, ambition, have brought many here, but I assure you 
that bane of society, rum, has had a large share in the 
business ; many, many have told me so. 

" These few disconnected lines may serve to give you 
some idea of the state of things here, but my powers of 
descrij^tion are not sufficient to show up the realities of 
every-day Hfe. Were I an Irving, I could picture scenes 
that would distress you, but which I hope none will ever 
see again. — It is a noted fact, that many who die here, have 
their fate hastened, if not caused, by thinking and griev- 
ing about home. And all this for Fame. I think she will 
break her trumpet ere she can honestly sound the glories of 
the Hospital r 

A soldier from Maine stated that he was allowed by the 
Govei-nment twenty cents per day for his support from New 
Orleans home. The Volunteers from Massachusetts were 
subsisted home from the same place at about the rate of 
one cent per mile, — many sick and suffering ! Said a 
Western editor, "we spent some hours in conversation with 
those poor fellows, endeavoring to understand the meaning 
of such overwhelming squalor, want and misery ; for we do 
not exaggerate when we say, that we never beheld its 
parallel except at the Irish emigrant sheds in Canada last 
summer. The condition of these poor creatures was out- 
rageously offensive to every human sense, as well physical 
as moral." Said another editor, " Private Avery died 
yesterday ; and the sick receive no attention, except those 
who are so fortunate as to have friends who visit them. 
All are broken; many are destitute; and individual charity 
and friendship constitute the only succor which has yet been 
bestowed upon those who have found relief." 

But not to make these details of wretchedness tedious, let 
us pause a moment before we conclude, and contemplate 



120 THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. 

tliis tremendous spectacle of death, sudden or lingering, 
in war. What but the voice, at which the dead themselves 
shall live, has potency enough, or can plead trumpet- 
tongued against the deep damnation of such a taking off of 
thousands of our fellow-men ? Life, as well as property, 
is a great trust from the Creator, to be held, preserved and 
employed, according to the will of the principal. We have 
no right to lay violent hands on it ourselves, nor to suffer, 
if we can prevent it, and keep a clear conscience, any other 
man to do it harm or hazard. Moses proclaimed from 
Mount Sinai, Jesus from Mount Zion, " Thou shalt not 
kill." It is the law of the moral and social world, and it can- 
not he openly, frequently, and flagrantly broken, as is done 
in war without involving one or both the parties concerned 
in a most solemn responsibihty, both to God and man. We 
are pained even at the sight of an animal killed ; what should 
be our horrof then at the contemplation of a battle where 
men meet in vast numbers with all the skilful enginery 
of destruction, for the express aim of setting this law of 
God at the utmost defiance, and imbruing one another's 
hands in the blood of children of the same Heavenly 
Father, and disciples of the same Saviour ! The following 
is from an actor in the battle of Buena Vista : '' The morn- 
ing of the 23d came. The fight was renewed, and soon 
the battle became general. The hissing shot swept like a 
hurricane through the serried ranks, opening huge gaps, 
instantly to be closed by fresh victims ; the shell, with its 
fearful surging noise, flew over the plain, leaving a blue 
streak behind, and after cutting down several, would burst, 
its fragments disemboweling and tearing off heads and arms 
alike ; the flesh would be rent from a soldier's body and 
hurled in a milhon shreds, into the face of his comrade, who 
would shrink as if struck by the ball itself. Brains, and 
bones, and blood flew in the air over a fighting line 
like drops of water lashed from its current by a falling tree. 



THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. 121 

■''^llere the opposing forces stood in speaking distance, and 
piteously poured a wasting fire into one another's breasts ; 
there the work was hotter and deadlier, and as the cohnnn 
surged forward and back, the thrust of the bayonet was to 
decide the victory. Li a few instances, men threw down their 
guns, and grappling the hair or throat, plunged their long 
knives into their enemy, and maybe, while the reeking blade 
was raised for a second bloAv, the strong and blood-dyed arm 
fell lifeless. A man would rise from the close embrace of the 
death-struggle, and, ere he was erect, a sabre stroke had 
cleaved his skull and crushed through his face. In the rear 
and on the flanks, heavy squadrons of cavalry hung, 
and flew in thundering gallop, eager to detect some assaila- 
ble point, that they might trample to death a broken line. 
Oil ! it was a cruel and heart-sickening sight to look upon 
that dense impassioned mass of men rioting in blood and 
carnage like demons." 

It is the unspeakable aggravation of the loss of life in 
war, as compared with the mortality of a famine, or a dis- 
ease, that it is man killing man, brother lifting up sword 
against brother, and repeating the example of Cain, in each 
one of a hundred or a thousand legalized murders. The 
chief evil of war is its sinfulness, its unholy motives, 
its fiendish passions, its repeal of every thing good, and 
its encouragement of all the worst feelings and desires of 
the carnal man. Its battles, fought on the shores of 
time, send their hellish influences through eternity. Ac- 
cording to the ingenious mathematical demonstration of 
a great Natural Philosopher of the present day, whatever 
sound is made, goes on and on resounding and rever- 
berating in never-ending echoes ; — the shriek of the 
murdered, " the confused noise of the warriors," rolling for- 
ever through the universe, and repeated to the last syllable 
of time. This is a faint image of the everlasting evils that 
will follow on cartli and in futurity, the convulsions of war. 

11 



122 LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 

The loss of life in this manner is attended, also, with the 
two-fold painful feeling, that many who perish are not can- 
didates for this change in the ordinary course of nature, 
but that they are often the young, the vigorous, and the 
enterprising ; fathers, sons, brothers, who can ill be spared 
from the sphere of active life. War feeds on some of the 
most active of our race. But a yet more affecting idea to 
the Christian and moralist associated with this mode of 
death, is that it takes place oftentimes not only in the ab- 
sence of all suitable preparation, but in a state of the most 
extreme disqualification and violent unfitness ; — the soul 
agitated with the most tumultuous, if not the most diabolical 
passions; the weapons of death clenched in the grasp of 
a dreadful resolution, " the human face divine" lighted up 
with the fires of ambition or revenge, the eye kindling with 
exultation at seeing a brother fall, and the word of impiety 
and undying hate still trembling on the lips. What a state 
in which to bid adieu to this solemn hfe of earth, and to 
enter on the more solemn scenes of an eternal world ! 



CHAPTER XI 



LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 

" Were not the mercies of God infinite, it were in vain for those of 
the military profession to hope for any portion of them, seeing the 
cruelties by them permitted and perpetrated are also infinite." — 
MouLuc, Mars^hal of Ekance. 

War, ill its nature, is a barbarism. It implies a return 
to the brute force, that governs men in the savage state. 



LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE TTAR. 12.'> 

It is a substitution of might for right. The parties do not 
rest the strength of their cause upon the weight of their 
arguments, but the calibre of their cannon. Since the 
whole system combines physical violence, in all its varieties 
and most shocking displays, we must expect to find, in each 
separate act and scene, the marks of its atrocities and cruel- 
ties. Every battle, from the necessity of the case, must be 
a reign of the Furies. Every camp must be a school of 
abominations. Every march, though " the land is as the 
garden of Eden before," must leave " behind it a desolate 
wilderness." * 

These are natural and necessary results. We cannot 
wound and kill men without hurting them. War is th6 god 
of cruelty. It is the embodiment of inhumanity. It cannot 
be carried on, for a single day, upon Christian principles. 
It militates against every social precept of the Gospel. Its 
aim is not to love, but to hate our enemies ; to do them evil, 
not good ; to destroy men's lives, not to save them ; to re- 
turn not good for evil, but evil for evil, a greater evil for a 
less evil, or even evil for good ; to curse, not bless our ene- 
mies ; to see how far it can make mankind, not the children 
of " the Highest, who is kind unto the unthankful and to 
the evil," but the children of " him who was a murderer from 
the beginning." 

In bringing, therefore, the Mexican War before the bar 
of public opinion and the religion of Christ, we shall expect 
ta find it, like all other wars, a system of barbarities, — a 
reversal of civilization and Christianity. Though carried 
on between two nominally Christian nations, and with loud 
professions, at its outset, of humanity, we shall soon discover, 
by the testimony of unimpeachable witnesses, that it is the 
same old " trade of barbarism," as Napoleon called war ; 
and that, while it was a contest not particularly embittered 

* Joel 2 : 3. 



124 LEGITIMATE BAKBAEITIES OF THE WAR. 

by religious animosities, though fouglit between a Catholic 
and a Protestant power, and while its period Avas the nine- 
teenth century of the era of the Prince of Peace, the boasted 
age of intelligence, science, refinement, and phihmthropy, 
yet that its outrages and horrors are equal to those of any 
war, of any age, in proportion to its duration and the num- 
ber of its combatants. Its evils, in other respects, have 
fitly corresponded to its amazing waste of treasure and 
Hfe. 

There are, in the first place, what may be called the 
legitimate and inevitable horrors of the battle, the siege, the 
camp, and the hospital. These we have already adverted 
to ; but they deserve a more emphatic consideration, that 
our readers may realize, in some measure, what a war is, 
and for what kind of a thing they vote or speak, when they 
advocate a war. Then there are what may be called the 
illegitimate barbarities ; those which military men themselves 
condemn, and which, even they feel, dim the beauty of their 
great idol, the glory of arms, and wither the laurels of the 
victor. To the examination of the evidence, on both these 
points, we will now direct our attention ; and, if testimony 
summoned from these fields of blood possess any credibility, 
— if language convey any meaning, — and if the human 
heart be ahve to human pains and sins, — we must feel that 
we stand in the presence of calamities that ought not to be 
allowed to drop into obUvion, without giving us their most 
solemn lessons of peace, and admonitions against war. 

Here, also, let it be remarked, that we have, in these 
accounts, a more unbiassed description of war, as it is, than 
can often be obtained, from the fact, that those who went 
into it were, for the most part, not hardened and professional 
soldiers, but men fresh from peaceful pursuits, and, in not a 
few cases, ardent patriots and worthy citizens, though they 
might not, to use the Western phrase, stop " to see whether 
they were right," before they " went ahead." The letter 



LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 125 

writers, too, were generally spectators, rather than actors, in 
the scenes they portray. The two leading generals, whose 
reports we shall quote, were also humane and kindly-hearted 
men, so far as the profession of arms will allow. We have, 
therefore, a fair chance to know something of the real char- 
acter of war, from the declarations of those whose bosoms 
had not become wholly steeled to its miseries. 

Palo Alto and Besaca de la Palma. A correspondent of the 
Boston Courier, says : " That night was to me a terrible 
one, which I shall never, never forget. The screams and 
groans of the wounded and dying on both sides, mangled 
and torn as they all were, with the grape and six-pounder 
shots — the conflagration of the battle-ground, fit emblem of 
the awful work of death which had so long been going on, — 
the moans of the poor oxen and horses, so terribly mangled, 
— and the dreadful uncertainty of the extent of our loss, 
and how many of our friends, who were alive at dinner, 
were then asleep forever, — the night-work of our surgeons, 
with their horrible instruments all besmeared with human 
blood, — were sights, and sounds, and thoughts, I pray God, 
in his mercy, may never visit me again." 

An officer of the army writes from Matamoras, May 23, 
1846 : " I went over the field, after the battle of Resaca de 
la Palma ; and the sight which met my eye there was one 
which imagination can scarcely depict. Bodies of Mexican 
soldiers were lying about in every direction ; some with 
their heads entirely or partly shot off, others without legs or 
arms, others with their entrails torn out. One man, a fine- 
looking fellow, was lying on the ground, with a cartridge in 
his fingers ; having evidently been killed while in the act of 
priming his musket. I crept about on my hands and knees 
through the chapparal, and at every few paces I would 
come across dead bodies ; and, at one spot, I discovered the 
body of a beautiful Mexican girl, staked through the 
heart." 

11* 



126 LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 

" Go where jou would," says T. B. Thorpe, in " Our 
Army on the Rio Grande," " and there were evidences of 
the artillery. Ringgold had written the strength of 'his 
arm' with terrible distinctiveness. Ai-ms and legs gone, 
shattered bodies, ghastly wounds, all too hideous for the 
musket, were everywhere to be seen. It was surprising 
that men could live, thus torn to pieces. And yet the great- 
est suffering, apparently, was from a musket ball. Had it 
been grape, or of heavier material, it would have done its 
work effectually, and left its victim painless in death. As 
it was, it had gone through the breast, tearing the fine 
machinery of the lungs to pieces, and yet left vitality enough 
to have them move on in their ruins, poisoning the whole 
frame with impure blood, and leaving the patient to sufier 
beyond the power of imagination to conceive. Poor sol- 
dier ! His breath rattled and tore away at his vitals ; his 
sufferings were, indeed, a dark spot on the bloody page of 
war." 

He also describes the awful scenes at the Rio Grande, 
during the retreat and crossing of the Mexicans, and the 
confusion at the city of Matamoras : " The water was cov- 
ered with the miserable beings, who, confused and despe- 
rate, plunged about in the waves, calling on God to help 
them, or venting their impotent maledictions upon those who 
had forced them to a watery grave. They sunk by scores, 
clutching each other in the agonies of death ; and the " mad 
river " fairly boiled, with the expiring breath of those who 
had sunken under its dark waves ! 

" In the midst of the panic. Father Leary arrived at the 
bank, and by his presence restored order, in a certain de- 
gree, among the fugitives. He took his place on the flat, 
already crowded with troops. It was about shoving off, 
when down tlie bank SAvept a flying column of cavalry. 
Goaded by tlieir I'iders, the steeds madly leaped into the 
boats ; crushinir to death scores of their victims, and driving 



LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 127 

the remainder into the river. The holy father raised his 
crucifix above his head, muttered an ejacuhitory prayer, and 
disappeared, with the mass of his fellow-beings, under the 
waves. 

" Nothing could exceed the consternation that reigned in 
Matamoras, on the night of the 9th. Between 4,000 and 
5,000 lawless soldiers were wandering, panic-struck, about 
the streets. * * * 

" The night was made hideous, by the constant arrival of 
the wounded, in sacks ; many yelled like fiends, as the 
rough carriage and contracted form started afresh their 
bleeding wounds ; others were found dead in their sacks, 
having been drowned while crossing the river on swimming 
mules. * * * 

'' The more substantial citizens hurriedly gathered to- 
gether their effects, and fled into the country; many of 
these fell by the hands of unorganized troops, and their 
property was divided among the murderers. Hundreds of 
soldiers were scattered over the country, who pillaged all 
within their reach, and attacked the defenceless that came 
in their way. Social, civil, and military order was scattered 
to the winds ; dark crime and unbridled passion rioted in 
the terrible confusion that followed this terrible defeat. 

Monterey. The attack on this place had the character of 
a battle, a siege, and an assault, and combined the horrors 
of all. Let us call the witnesses, remembering that they 
are war-men, and observing that their stories have internal 
marks of genuineness and authenticity. 

Young Wynkoop, of Zanesville, Ohio, writes, "During 
the fight of the second day, a flag of cessation was sent to 
the Mexicans, requesting a few hours to bury the dead 
which were strewed in frightful piles over the field. This 
was refused, and the wounded and dead lay where they fell, 
beneath the rays of a scorcliing sun till the battle was' ended. 
It was then almost impossible for our men to endure the 



128 LEGITI5IATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 

stench, while they heaped dirt over the poor fellows where 
they lay. The bodies of the dead were as black as coals. 
Many of them were stripped of their clothing by the Mex- 
icans during the night. Several of those who were wounded 
during the first day's fight, crawled into ditches and holes to 
avoid the balls which were rolling like hailstones over the 
field, whence, exhausted by the loss of blood, they were 
unable to crawl, or give signs of distress. As a consequence, 
many perished, though some who were found in this con- 
dition were removed, and are recovering. 

" I am satisfied with glory, if it is to be obtained only by 
butchering my fellow-men ; and I wish some of our valorous 
friends at the North could see a little more of the realities 
of war, and they would not be so anxious to rush into one 
on every trivial occasion. It makes me sick now, when 
I think of the scenes I witnessed. They were perfectly 
horrid. On the night of the 23d, as our shells exploded in 
the city, they were followed by the most terrific cries, per- 
haps from uwmen and children, which did not cease till 
morning. Thank God ! I only threw two shells that night, 
on account of being told the Texans were on the roofs of 
the houses immediately in my line of fire, and as I was 
about to open in the morning upon the principal plaza, which 
was filled with four thousand troops, I was stopped by the 
appearance of a flag of truce, and the result was the capitu- 
lation of the city, and a suspension of arms for two months, 
which I hope may terminate in a general peace, and that we 
may be permitted again to see our families." 

But what heart, though it be of stone, is not pierced and 
thrilled with the following tragedy of real life ! To think 
that an humble, disinterested heroine like this woman should 
perish in her work of humanity ! Hers was the true glory. 
The warrior's fame is a sham and a cheat. She shall live in 
the eternal memory of history. We may say, without ir- 
reverence, of lier, as was said of the woman of the new Tes- 



LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 1:79 

tament, that wheresoever this battle shall be spoken of " in 
the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath 
done be told for a memorial of her." 

The following is an extract of a letter addressed to the 
^^ Louisville Courier" dated Monterey, Oct. 17, 1847: — 
" While I was stationed with our left wing in one of the 
forts, on the evening of the 21st, I saw a Mexican woman 
busily engaged in carrying bread and water to the wounded 
men of both armies. I saw the ministering angel raise the 
head of a wounded man, give him water and food, and then 
bind up his ghastly wound with a handkerchief she took 
from her own head. After having exhausted her supplies, 
she went back to her house to get more bread and water for 
others. As she was returning on her mission of mercy, to 
comfort other wounded persons, I heard the report of a gun, 
and saw the poor innocent creature fall dead ! I think it 
was an accidental shot that struck her. I would not be 
willing to believe otherwise. It made me sick at heart, and, 
turning from the scene, I involuntarily raised my eyes to- 
ward heaven, and thought. Great God ! is this war ? Pass- 
ing the spot the next day, I saw her body still lying there, 
with the bread by her side, and the broken gourd, with a 
few drops of water still in it, — emblems of her errand. We 
buried her, and while we were digging her grave, cannon 
balls flew around us like hail." 

Buena Vista. " At one time during the fight," says an 
eye-witness, writing from Saltillo, "we returned over the 
ground on wliich we made our first charge. We there saw 
the mangled bodies of our fallen comrades, and, although 
animated by the excitement of the fierce contest which was 
just then renewed, yet I think there was not a heart among 
us which did not for a moment cease to beat on beholding 
that horrible scene. But for his straw hat, and a few other 
articles of clothing which the rufiians had left on him, I 
should have failed to recognize the body of young Eggleston. 



130 LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 

He was shot, stabbed, and otherwise abused. This was, 
indeed, the fate of all whom I saw. Lieut. Moore, and a 
man named Couch, of our company, were the onlj persons 
whose bodies I easily recognized. 

"After the battle, I rode over the whole field. Parties 
were engaged in burying the dead ; but still there were 
hundi-eds of bodies lying stiff and cold, with no covering 
save the scanty remnant of clothing which the robbers of 
the dead found too valueless to take from them. I saw the 
human body pierced in every place. I saw expressed in the 
faces of the dead almost every expression and feeling. Some 
|eemed to have died defending their lives bravely to the last. 
Some seemed to have died execrating their enemies, and 
cursing them with their last breath ; others had the most 
placid and resigned expression and feeling ; while others 
evidently used their last words in supplicating for mercy. 
Here lay youth and matui-e age calmly reposing m untimely 
death. 

"Among the hundreds of the dead whom I saw there, 
I was much touched by the appearance of the corpse of a 
Mexican boy, whose age, I should think, could not have 
exceeded fifteen years. A bullet had struck him full 
through the breast, and must have occasioned almost in- 
stant death. He was lying on liis back, his face slightly 
incHned to one side, and although cold, yet beaming with a 
bright and sunny smile, which eloquently told the specta- 
tor that he had fallen with his face to his country's foe. 

" Saltillo is one vast hospital. Besides our own wounded 
(four or five hundred in number), Gen. Taylor has collected 
all the wounded Mexicans who were left by their army, 
and put them in hospital. It is most disgusting to visit one 
of these places. All the Mexicans are badly wounded ; for 
those who were shghtly wounded went off. They are dying 
every hour in the day." 

Says Capt. Carlton, in his work called " The Battle of 



LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 131 

Buena Vista," — "We imagined that during the battle, and 
upon the field when the conflict was ended, and afterwards 
upon the road over which the enemy had retreated, we had 
witnessed human suffering in its most distressing forms. 
But such was not the case. The scene presented to our 
eyes on entering within the walls of Encarnacion, was so 
filled with extreme and utter agony, that we at once ceased 
to shudder at the remembrance of any misery we had ever 
before looked upon. There were 300 men crowded together 
in that wretched place, 222 of whom had been wounded at 
Buena Vista, and brought thus far. There were five officers 
amongst them. As they had received but little surgical 
attention, and had been harassed and worn doAvn by tra- 
velling so far while debilitated with pain and loss of blood, 
their wounds were nearly all either gangrened or highly 
inflamed. Many of them Avere enduring the most excru- 
ciating torments ; many were delirious from excess of an- 
guish ; while others, whose wounds had become mortified, 
were perfectly composed, and yet were even more piteous 
to behold, as their very quietness was but a more certain 
indication of speedy dissolution. In fine, the whole hacienda 
presented at one glance a picture of death, embracing all the 
degrees, from the strong man bearing up with fortitude 
against the sure and speedy fate which awaited him, down 
to the poor mortal struggling in the last throe of existence. 
And all intermixed with them, were the bodies of those who 
had just commenced the long journey, yet warm, and lying 
in the various positions they were severally in when life 
departed. Poor fellows ! No beloved eye had beamed 
tearfully upon them in their last moments. No voice of 
affection had murmured in their ear little gentle words of 
hope, or that touching comfort, " we shall meet againr And 
there was no kind hand to honor their remains by straight- 
ening them for the grave." 

Such is war, Christian war, or war carried on by one 



132 LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 

Christian nation against another, as described bj its colonels, 
captains, and soldiers ! It is not perhaps in good taste to 
call up such horrid and loathsome images ; but better, in- 
finitely better it is, that we should have our sensibilities 
even painfully aroused to feel the unutterable horrors of 
war, than that we should ever by our guilty indifference or 
uuremonstrating silence allow or encourage those causes to 
go into operation, by which all these miseries are produced, 
or should exert a direct and interested part in bringing them 
to pass. What indeed must be the magnitude and terror 
of those evils in their reality, when the mere description of 
them on paper is so abhorrent and disgusting ! Let us be 
willing to encounter a horrid image of distress in our read- 
ing, if it shall move us to seek by all means in our power 
to arrest some father, son, brother, fellow-man, from falling 
into that distress in actual life, or to stay a nation's myriad- 
handed power from embarking in the business of human 
butchery. 

It was in reference to the action at Buena Yista in par- 
ticular, and other battles in general, that the highest mili- 
tary, executive, and legislative authorities in the nation used 
the phrases, — " the grateful task of congratulating the 
troops upon the brilliant success which attended their arms," 
— "a great and glorious victory," — " a success which com- 
mands universal admiration," — "a glorious triumph," — 
" brilliant successes," — " gallant army," — " brilliant series," 
" glorious actions," and many other terms of a like import. 
But would it not be more in harmony with the dictates of 
humanity and the Gospel, and with the proper feelings in a 
free and prosperous nation, that this " exultation of success," 
to use the language of the American commander-in-chief, 
should be " checked by the heavy sacrifice of life which it 
has cost ;" and that even if wars are necessary things, which 
we are not yet prepared to concede, the heart-rending scenes 
which are exhibited on its fields of death, and in its hospitals 



LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 133 

of anguish, should have no such epithets as " great," " glo- 
rious," "gallant," "brilliant," appended to them? Far be 
it from us to undervalue courage, patriotism, and many of 
the qualities which the soldier may manifest in the hour of 
danger, but the spirit of glorification is not in good taste, 
either intellectual or moral, in these awful scenes. Fiends 
in the regions of woe may exult over the fallen and the 
lost, the sorrowing and the despairing ; but it is not for 
man, frail, suffering, dependent man, needing mercy himself, 
be he king or president, general or senator, to glory in war 
and the exploits of war ; but if necessity requires such in- 
conceivable atrocities and agonies, to veil his face and bow 
his head, and pray for mercy on the victims, as he would at 
the foot of the gallows supplicate for the malefactor. 

Vei'a Cruz (True Cross!). According to the statements 
of official authority, Gen. Scott gave permission for the 
foreign consuls and their families to retire to neutral ships 
in the harbor, or other places of safety, and allotted time 
before he opened his cannon and completed his investment, 
for all women and children, and non-combatants, who de- 
sired to do so, to depart from danger into the country. But 
all chose to take their chance in the besieged and bombarded 
city. The scenes which followed, — behold them! 

The General-in-chief writes to the War Department, 
March 25, 1847, "All the batteries, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, 
are in awful activity this morning. The effect is no doubt 
very great, and I tliink the city cannot hold out beyond to- 
day." 

The British, French, Spanish, and Prussian Consuls, in 
a letter to Gen. Scott, March 24th, speak of " the frightful 
results of the bombardment of Vera Cruz during yesterday 
and the day before." 

The following is an extract from the JVeiu Torh Herald: 
— " The bombardment of four days placed the town in ruins, 
12 



134 LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 

under which great numbers of non-combatants, men, women, 
and children, were buried. 

" The bombardment is represented to have been terrific, 
and to its thunders succeeded the moans of the dying in 
every part of the town for several days afterwards." 

The N^ew Orleans Commercial Times says, " A shell from 
one of our mortars passed thi'ough the dome of one of the 
churches, and exploded on the altar, killing ten or fifteen 
women who had gathered there for protection." 

A correspondent of the Alton Telegraph, writing from 
Vera Cruz, says, " The French families in the city were the 
greatest sufferers. I heard a great many heart-rending tales 
which were told by the survivors with breaking hearts ; but 
I have neither the inclination nor the time now to repeat 
them. One, however, I will name. A French family were 
quietly seated in their parlor the evening previous to the 
hoisting of the white flag, when a shell from one of the mor- 
tars penetrated the building, and exploded in the room, kill- 
ing the mother and four children, and wounding the residue. ■ 
Another shell struck the charity hospital, penetrated the 
roof, bursting in the room where the sick inmates were 
lying, and killed twenty-three. Thus rushed into eternity, 
in the twinkling of an eye, not only the invalid, but the 
innocent and unoiFending. Such are a few of the horrors 
and fearful calamities that have marked the progress of this 
siege and capture." 

Sketches still more graphic and heart-rending are given 
in the Advertiser, Auburn, N. Y., from E. C. Hine. " After 
penetrating some distance," he says, "I paused and looked 
around me. Save our little party, not an American was to 
be seen. We were literally alone in an enemy's city. We 
were the first of our countrymen who had entered Vera 
Cruz. 

" Never had I beheld such destruction of property. 
Scarcely a house did I pass that did not show some great 



LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 135 

rent by the bursting of our bomb-shells. At almost every 
house at which I paused to examine the destruction occa- 
sioned by these di-eadful messengers of death, some of the 
family, if the house did not happen to be deserted, would 
come to the door, and, inviting me to enter, point out their 
property destroyed, and, with a pitiful sigh, exclaim. La 
homba! la homha! (the bomb ! the bomb !) My heart ached 
for the poor creatures. 

" During my peregrinations, I came to a lofty and noble 
mansion, in which a terrible bomb-shell had exploded, and 
laid the whole front of the house in ruins. While I was 
examining the awful havoc created, a beautiful girl of some 
seventeen came to the door and invited me into the house. 
She pointed to the furniture of the mansion torn into frag- 
ments, and the piles of rubbish lying around, and informed 
me, with her beautiful eyes full of tears, that the bomb had 
destroyed her father, mother, brother, and two little sisters, 
and that she was now left in the world alone. war! war! 
who can tell thy horrors ! 

" During the afternoon I visited the hospital. Here lay, 
upon truckle beds, the mangled creatures who had been 
wounded during the bombardment. In one comer was a 
poor, decrepit, bed-ridden woman, her head white with the 
sorrows of seventy years. One of her withered arms had 
been blown off with the fragment of a shell. In another 
place might be seen mangled creatures of both sexes, bruised 
and disfigured by the falling of their houses and bursting of 
the shells. On the stone floor lay a Httle child, in a com- 
plete state of nudity, with one of its poor legs cut off just 
above the knee ! The apartment was filled with flies, that 
seemed to delight in the agonies of the miserable creatures 
over whom they hovered ; and the moans were heart- 
rending." 

"We are yet ignorant," says a Mexican paper, "of the 
exact number of the killed and wounded ; but, by the best 



136 LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 

data we have obtained, estimate both at not less than 1,000 
persons. The damage done to dwellings and edifices is 
Jive or six million dollars, — which cannot be repaired for 
man J years." 

The same authority says : "In a short time the hospitals 
were crowded with the wounded, the dead being simulta- 
neously buried. The bombs entered the walls of the church 
of Santo Domingo, killing the unfortunate wounded, fright- 
ening away the nurses and doctors, who, after arriving with 
haste and risk at the church of San Francisco, and the 
chapel of the third order, encountered the same dismal fate, 
as well as at the hospitals of Belen and Loretto, where, it is 
well ascertained, one bomb assassinated nineteen innocent 
persons. In all quarters perished unfortunate persons, 
seeking a shelter from this frightful desolation ; while the 
wounded retaining strength enough to raise themselves, fled 
as cripples, and sprinkled the streets with their blood. 
Most of the families, whose houses had been destroyed, 
had lost everything; all the property remaining to them 
being the clothes on their backs, because what the flames 
did not consume was buried under the ruins. Hundreds of 
persons, as weU as fathers of numerous families of children, 
heretofore relying upon certain incomes, to-day find them- 
selves without a bed to lie upon, without covering or cloth- 
ing to shelter them, and without any victuals. Having been 
a target, during five entire days, for 6,000 or more projec- 
tiles, which separated when they exploded, forming, with- 
out counting the stones and rubbish thrown up, other ele- 
ments of destruction to the amount of 2,500,000 shots, — 
after sustaining this attack, we remain reduced to the most 
frightful misery, without any one knowing how, to-morrow, 
to feed his family." 

Tohasco. " In view of this scene. Commodore Perry or- 
dered the vessels again to be cast loose from the steamers, 
to retake their position for raking the town, and now gave 



LEGITIMATE BARBAKITIES OF THE WAR. lo7 

the order to open it, in vengeance and retaliation. Two 
hours were spent in throwing shot, round canister, and 
grape, and musket balls, into the place, demolishing parts 
of those houses from which Mexicans were seen to fire ; 
and, at random, but ahvays with certain accuracy, on some 
part of the town, the balls and shells fell ; and wo was 
borne with them, even to the sickening of the hearts of 
those who sent them. Signals, at length, were, made by the 
commodore, to unite the tow of the different schooners to 
the steamers, — the steamers taking a schooner under each 
wins. The anchors of the steamers were then weiorhed 
and they stood near in to the town, as they passed up the 
stream, and raked the buildings as they went by. Winding 
ship, they came down again, discharging their other battery 
continually, and, in a naval point of view, beautifully, ' as 
they glided by the town, and now left it in its injuries, blood, 
and sorrow.' " 

Mexico. One of the surgeons of the army, (who has 
since been dangerously wounded,) writing to a friend after 
the battles of Contreras and Churubusco, says : " After 
operating, with my assistants, till three o'clock in the morn- 
ing, I left the building of w^hich I had made a temporary 
hospital, to take an hour's rest in the open air. / turned 
round, to look at my amputation table ; under it was a perfect 
heap of arms and legs ; and, looking at myself, I was covered 
with blood from head to foot." 

" We are permitted," says the " Syracuse Daily Journal^'* 
" to make the following extracts from a letter, written by 
one of the most distinguished officers of the army, to his 
wife : 

" The sight of one battle-field cures one of a desire for 
military life. If he could see the literal piles of mangled 
corpses of the slain, — some without heads, some without 
legs or arms, some with their bowels torn open, the ground 

12* 



138 LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 

strewn with the wounded, dead, and dying, — he would be 
content with his lot. 

"The most heart-sickening spectacle I "ever beheld was 
the arch-episcopal palace at Tacabaya, converted into a hos- 
pital on the day of Mohno del Rey. The floors of the spa- 
cious apartments were covered with wounded officers and 
men, to the extent of many hundreds, who were suffering 
horrid agonies, while the corps of surgeons were actively 
engaged in amputating limbs ; some of the victims screamed 
with agony, while others sustained themselves with heroic 
fortitude. I had occasion to go through the spacious build- 
ing twice that day, and witnessed many operations. I saw 
the amputated Hmbs quivering with life, while the gutters 
of the court were fiUed with streams of human blood. It 
was heart-sickening, and enough to cure any man of a taste 
for war." 

A Mexican writes as follows, of the taking of the Capital : 
" On the morning of the 14th, before day-hght, the enemy, 
with a part of his force, commenced his march upon the 
city. Our soldiers, posted behind the arches of the aque- 
ducts, and several breast-works which had been hastily 
thrown up, annoyed him so severely, together with the 
trenches which he had to bridge over, that he did not arrive 
at the gates until late in the afternoon. Here he halted and 
attempted to bombard the city, which he did during the 
balance of the day and the day following, doing immense 
damage. In some cases, whole blocks were destroyed, and 
a great number of men, women, and children killed and 
wounded. 

••' The picture w^as awful. One deafening roar filled our 
ears, one cloud of smoke met our eyes, now and then mixed 
with flame ; and, amid it all, we could hear the various 
shrieks of the wounded and dying. 

" Many were killed by the blowing up of the houses ; 
many by the bombardment ; but more by the confusion 



ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 139 

which prevailed in the city; and altogether we cannot 
eoimt our killed, wounded, and missing, since the actions 
commenced yesterday, at less than 4,000, — among whom 
are many women and childi-en. The enemy confesses a loss 
of over 1,000 ; it is, no doubt, much greater." 



CHAPTER XII. 

ILLEGITiaiATE BARBARITIES. 

" War is also the fruitful parent of crimes. It reverses, with respect 
to its objects, all the rules of morality. It is nothing less than a tem- 
porary repeal of the principles of virtue. It is a system out of which 
almost all the virtues are excluded, and in which nearly all the vices 
are included." — Robert Hall. 

But there is another picture, — not of fierce and cruel 
passions, clothing themselves in the garb of the laws of war, 
or riding on the whirlwind of battle, but bursting forth, 
without any law, restraint, or sanction, unless vengeance 
have a law. Here, too, we see the natural fruits of war, — 
the natural accompaniments, more or less, of every war. 
For, when the passions are aroused to their maximum, they 
cannot be checked at any particular point of propriety, 
morality, or even mihtary subordination ; but are ready to 
break over all bounds, and rush into the most ungovernable 
extremes of cruelty and lust. 

In oi\ler to substantiate the facts under this branch of 
the subject, we shall quote the testimony of the soldiers and 
letter-writers, and confirm their statements by the authentic 
reports of the commanding generals on both sides. We 
shall thus see that the Mexican War, waged in the nine- 



iW ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 

teenth century, between two professedly free and Christian 
nations, was in most respects no better, and probably no 
worse, than the wars of past times. We have said all that 
can be said, when we call it war. 

In relation to the march of a body of troops from the 
Rio Grande towards Monterey, a correspondent of the 
Louisville Journal writes as follows, in vindication of severe 
language used by Gen. Taylor, respecting the volunteers : 
" The march of the regiment, from the lawless character of 
some of those composing it, was everywhere marked by 
deeds of wanton violence and cruelty. Along the whole 
extent of the march, ranchos were burned, cattle were 
shot, hogs and poultry were killed, and even pet pigs were 
slaughtered at the very feet of the women and children 
that owned them. The shooting of cattle was often done 
in utter wantonness ; the marauders either suffering them to 
lie just as they fell, or merely cutting out their tongues and 
leaving their carcases to rot ; thus showing that it was not 
the want of food that incited them to outrage. These out- 
rages were all reported to Gen. Taylor, before his arrival at 
Marin, and can be substantiated by Col. Fauntleroy, of the 
2d Dragoons ; Col. Randolph, of the Virginia Volunteers ; 
Col. Belknap, Inspector General of the U. S. Army ; Lieut. 
Patterson, of the JMississippi Regiment, and many others, if 
necessary. 

"At Marin itself, where the severe language of Gen. 
Taylor is said to have been used, the conduct of the ad- 
vanced guard of Col. Curtis's regiment was marked by sim- 
ilar atrocities. The night before the arrival of the Ohio 
Regiment there. Gen. Taylor had slept in the town and 
seen the Alcalde, had been the guest of some of the princi- 
pal citizens, had broken bread with them, and had promised 
them protection. But the advanced guard of Curtis's regi- 
ment entered the town ; and instantly the work of pillage, 
robbery, and devastation was begun. At least four houses 
were set on fire by them." 



ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 141 

The Monterey cori-espondent of the Charleston Mercury^ 
after the capitulation of the city, says : " As at Matamoras, 
murder, robbery, and i^pe, were committed in broad light 
of day ; and, as if desirous to signalize themselves, at Mon- 
terey, by some new act of atrocity, they burned many of the 
thatched huts of the poor peasants. It is thought that more 
than one hundred of the inhabitants were murdered in cold 
blood; and one Mexican soldier, with Gen. Worth's pass- 
port in his pocket, was shot dead at noon-day, in the main 
street of the city, by a ruffian from Texas. But for the 
moral influence, and the finally exerted physical force of the 
hirelings of government, the dark deeds of Badajoz would 
have been repeated at Monterey. Guards of ' mercenaries ' 
are now placed in every street, and over every building, in 
the city ; to prevent depredations being committed by those 
who come here from devotion to ' the land of the free and 
the home of the brave.' 

" The Mexicans themselves admit, that before the arrival 
of the volunteers upon the Rio Grande, all Eastern Mexico 
was ripe for revolt, and annexation to the United States. 
Now there is no portion of the country so bitterly hostile to 
us and our institutions." 

The army correspondent of the New Orleans Picayune, 
Mr. Haile, writing from near Mier, Jan. 4, 1847, says : 
" Below Mier we met the 2d regiment of Indiana troops, 
commanded, I believe, by CoL Drake. They encamped 
near our camp; and a portion of them were exceedingly irre- 
gular in their behavior; firing away their cartridges, and 
persecuting the Mexican families at a rancho near by." 

" On arriving at ISIier we learned, from indisputable au- 
thority, that this same regiment had committed, the day 
before, outrages against the citizens of the most disgraceful 
character ; stealing, or rather robbing, insulting the women, 
breaking into houses, and other feats of a similar character ! 
We have heard of them at almost every rancho up to this 
place. 



142 ILLEGITIMATE BAFtBARITIES. 

" Gen. Taylor has issued proclamations, assuring tlie in- 
habitants of the towns in the conquered territory that thej 
should be protected and Avell treated by our troops. Since 
this place has been garrisoned by volunteers, the families 
have been subjected to all kinds of outrages. At Punta 
Aguda it has been the same ; most of those who could go, 
have left their houses. Some have fallen into the hands 
of the Camanches, wliile flying from the persecutions of 
our volunteer troops. Recently, the troops have received 
treatment from men stationed here, (I do not know who 
commands them,) that negi'oes in a state of insurrection 
would hardly be guilty of. The women have been repeat- 
edly violated, (almost an every day affair,) houses are 
broken open, and insults of every kind have been offered 
to those whom we are bound by honor to protect. This is 
nothing more than a statement of facts. I have no time to 
make comments ; but I desire to have this published, and I 
have written it under the approval of Capt. Thornton, Major 
Dix, (who has in charge $250,000 of the United States* 
money,) Capt. De Hart, Col. Bohlen, Lieut. Thorn, Mr. 
Blanchard, and my own sense of duty ; and I am deter- 
mined, hereafter, to notice every serious offence of the above 
mentioned nature." 

In confirmation of these anonymous and other statements, 
we cite, from the Reports and Orders of Gen. Taylor, as 
follows. He writes from Monterey, Oct. 6, 1846, to the 
department at Washington : * " I have respectfully to report, 
that the entire force of Texas volunteers has been mustered 
out of service, and is now returning home by companies. 
With their departure we may look for a restoration of quiet 
and order in Monterey ; for, I regret to report, that some 
shameful atrocities have been perpetrated by them, since the 
capitulation of the town," 

* 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Ex, Doc. 60. 
pp. 430, 512, 513, 521. 



ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 143 

Again ; he issues orders, from the same place, Nov. 27, 
1846, that " The many outrages, that have been recently 
committed in the city of Monterey, and elsewhere, upon the 
persons and property of Mexican citizens., render it neces- 
sary to restrict the extensive use of riding animals among 
the rank and file of the army." So it appears that the Tex- 
ans were not the only peccant soldiers in the camp. 

On Dec. 2, 1846, orders are again sent out, to the follow- 
ing effect ; " Grave complaints have come to the command- 
ing general, touching depredations alleged to have been 
committed near Marin and Ramos, by troops and armed 
parties passing on the road. The general is therefore under 
the necessity of calling the attention of all ofiicers, command- 
ing escorts or other bodies of troops, and of all discharged 
men or others who may travel armed, between this point 
and Camargo, to the great importance of respecting the 
rights of all Mexican citizens. The good faith of the coun- 
try and the army has been pledged to this course ; and it 
is the interest of all to see that the reputation of neither be 
disgraced, by scenes of plunder and marauding. The troops 
are well supplied with the subsistence and forage allowed by 
law, and nothing can justify the wanton destruction of pri- 
vate property." 

On Oct. 5th a Mexican lancer was shot in open daylight 
in the streets of Monterey, according to the report of the 
commander in chief. 

The Special Orders of Dec. 7, 1846, relate to a " court 
of inquiry, convened at the request of Captain C. W. Bul- 
lin, 1st Kentucky regiment, to investigate the imputations 
against Company D, as connected with the violent death of 
a Mexican." 

A published letter from Monterey, dated Nov. 30, 1846, 
says, " The tables have been turned on the Mexicans, and 
for those who have been assassinated of the volunteers, a 
double number of the enemy have suffered within a day or 



144 ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 

two. It is reported tliis morning, that Gen. Taylor lias 
ordered the 1st Kentuckians to Ceralvo, to prevent this 
killing." 

"The war," says the same writer, Dec. 1, 1846, "between 
the Kentuckians and Mexicans, as it is familiarly termed, 
has created no little excitement both in town and the camp. 
It is thought that not less than forty Mexicans have been 
killed within the last five days, fifteen of whom, it is said, 
were killed in one day, and within the scope of one mile. 
From this, you will see that the boys are detennined to have 
and to take revenge for the assassination of their comrades. 

" Ever since the occupation of Matamoras by our troops, 
the Mexicans have been cutting off our men, whenever they 
could be found in convenient places for the job; and the 
compliment has been invariably returned, generally two for 
one." 

A letter from Camargo, Jan. 8, 1847, says, "assassina- 
tions, riots, robberies, etc., are so frequent that they do not 
excite much attention. Nine-tenths of the Americans here 
thhik it a meritorious act to kill or rob a Mexican ; and as 
large or larger proportion of the latter think it is doing 
* God service ' to retaliate in kind. Sometimes one side, and 
then the other are the aggressors. Intense and bitter hatred 
exists on both sides ; and the impunity with wliich crimes 
are committed operates as a license. There exists a kind 
of mihtary authority and a species of civil power, neither 
well defined, nor of much efficiency. 

" To enumerate the various acts of violence committed, 
would fill a column or two of your paper, and probably not 
do much good. In the newspaper published here, they are 
occasionally briefly stated. Two days since, a Mexican, well 
known here, was found in the public road about two miles 
from town, mortally wounded. He lived long enough to 
state that he had been met by two young men with muskets 
and bayonets. They demanded his blanket ; he gave it up. 



ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 145 

and as he was riding off, one of the men deliberately shot 
him through the body. He leaves a widow and five or six 
young children. Murders equally cruel, have been perpe- 
trated on our people, and no one can be discovered as the 
guilty person." 

The horrid tale below is from a letter published in the 
St. Louis Republican, 

" Camp of the Army at Agua Nueva ) 
Mexico, February 13, 1847. j 

"Some most unfortunate events have transpired in our 
column lately, which will arouse the vengeance of the ' pai- 
sanos' (peasants) in this country against our troops, and will 
furnish the disaffected at home with new food for vitupera- 
tion against the war. Occasional murders of our men have 
been perpetrated ever since we have been in this country, — 
all killed by the lasso. The Arkansas regiment of horse, 
from their having been employed as scouts, and occupying 
the outposts, have been particularly exposed to this guerilla 
warfare, and have lost four or five of their men. The day 
before yesterday, it was reported that one of their number 
had been killed by the Mexicans, as he had been missing 
from camp since the day before, when he went out to look 
for his horse. 

" Search was made for the body, and it was found about a 
thousand yards from our camp, with a lasso * around the 
neck, and tied to a prickly pear, having been dragged some 
hundred yards upon the face through the chapparal. It pre- 
sented a horrible sight: the name of the young man was 
Colquitt, a nephew of the senator. The Arkansas men 
vowed vengeance, deep and sure. Yesterday morning, a 
number of them, some thirty perhaps, went out to the foot of 
the mountain, two miles off, to an 'arroyo' which is washed 
in the side of the mountain, to which the ' paisanos ' of Agua 

* The " lasso" was in use among some of the wild troops in 
Xerxes' army in his invasion of Greece. Herodotus, 7. 85. 

13 



146 ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 

Nueva had fled upon our approach, and soon commenced an 
indiscriminate and bloody massacre of the poor creatures, who 
had thus fled to the mountains and fastnesses for security. 
A number of our regiment being out of camp, I proposed to 
Col. Bissel to mount our horses and ride to the scene of car- 
nage, where I knew, from the dark insinuations of the night 
before, that blood was running freely. We hastened out as 
hastily as possible, but owing to the thick chapparals, the 
work of death was over before we reached the horrible 
scene, and the perpetrators were returning to camp glutted 
with revenge. 

" Let us no longer complain of Mexican barbarity, — poor, 
degraded, ' priest ridden ' as she is. No act of inhuman 
cruelty, perpetrated by her most desperate robbers, can excel 
the work of yesterday, committed by our soldiery. God 
knows how many of the unanned peasantry have been sac- 
rificed to atone for the blood of poor Colquitt. The Arkan- 
sas regiment say not less than thirty have been killed. I 
think, however, at least twenty of them have been sent to 
their eternal rest. I rode through the chapparals, and found 
a number of their dead bodies not yet cold. The features, 
in every instance, were composed and tranquil, — lying upon 
their backs, eyes closed, and feet crossed. — You would have 
supposed them sleeping, but for the gory stream which be- 
dewed the turf around them. In some instances, after the 
vital spark had fled, in the overflow of demoniac vengeance 
the carbine ball dashed out the brains of its clayey victim." 

The following is an extract from one of the Orders of 
Gen. Taylor in relation to this barbarity. " The Commanding 
General regrets most deeply that circumstances again impose 
upon him the duty of issuing orders upon the subject of 
marauding and maltreating the Mexicans. Such deeds as 
have been recently perpetrated by a portion of the Arkansas 
cavalry, cast indelible disgrace upon our arais, and the repu- 
tation of our countiy. The General had hoped that he 



ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 147 

might be able in a short time to resume offensive operations, 
but if orders, discipline, and all the dictates of humanity are 
set at defiance, it is vain to expect any thing but disaster 
and defeat. The men who cowardly put to death unoffend- 
ing Mexicans, are not those who will sustain the honor of 
our arms in the day of trial." 

Gen. Taylor showed his sagacity in this prediction, for it 
was precisely those troops that a few days afterwards were 
the first to fly from the field of Buena Vista. 

It was in reference to these and similar barbarities that 
Santa Anna said to Gen. Taylor's messenger at Agua Nueva 
on the day after that battle ; " the Americans wage against 
us a war of Vandalism, whose excesses outrage those senti- 
ments of humanity which one civilized nation ought to evince 
toward another. In proof of this assertion, you have but to 
go outside of this apartment to see still smoking the dwellings 
of this recently flourishing village ; you passed the same 
vestiges of desolation at La Encantada on your route hither ; 
and if you will go a little farther on, there, to Catana, you 
will hear the moans of the widows and orphans of innocent 
victims who have been sacrificed without necessity." 

"We gather the following from the Boston Daily Times of 
May 11, 1847: — 

" By a letter from Gen. Taylor of the 4th April, it appears 
that a party of Americans, under Col. Mitchell's command, 
the 1st Ohio U. S. Dragoons, and Texas Rangers, made 
prisoners of twenty-four Mexicans at Guellapea, gave them 
a mock trial by night, and then shot them through the head ! " 

The above narrative will lead us to believe, that the Mex- 
ican accounts of the war are not wholly exaggerations. They 
refer to "the thousand and ten thousand assassinations com- 
mitted by our troops ; " " multitudes of Mexicans wandering 
in the woods, and pursued like wild beasts in their own 
country, robbed of their property, and driven from their 
families ; the multitude of peaceable and honorable men, 



148 ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 

who have been insulted, seized and beaten in presence even 
of a beloved daughter, or idolized wife ; the proud barbarity, 
the shameless cruelty required to burn the village, to slay 
the simple rustic, the feeble woman and the innocent child, 
as we beheld at Agua Nueva, Hidalgo, and other towns of 
the North." 

So outrageous was the conduct of the United States troops, 
that General Mora y Villamil, commander at San Luis Potosi, 
wrote a spirited remonstrance to Gen. Taylor, dated May 
10, 1847, in which he says;* "that the treacherous assas- 
sinations of Agua Nueva, Catana, and Marin have not been 
the only ones ; " and that the " ruin, devastation, and confla- 
gration of towns mark every where the march of the in- 
vading army." In his reply of May 19, 1847, Gen. Taylor 
acknowledges the facts referred to, and says that " they were 
in truth unfortunate exceptions, (to the mode in which the 
war was generally conducted in that part of Mexico) caused 
by circumstances beyond my control." He also states the 
violent pix)vocations which led to the above mentioned bar- 
barities, and says also, " Mexican troops have given to the 
world the example of killing wounded men upon the field 
of battle." In a letter to the War Department at Washing- 
ton, dated May 23, 1847, he discusses the unpleasant sub- 
ject, confesses the facts, attributes them to the volunteer 
trooj)s, and says, " while no one can regret their occurrence 
more than I do, yet I have not to reproach myself with the 
omission of any precaution to prevent them. Without a 
sufficient regular force even to guard our magazines and 
depots, I have found it entirely impossible to enforce, in all 
cases, the repeated orders which have been given against 
marauding and other irregularities." 

Still later, Jmie 16, 1847, Ave have the following some- 
what " rough and ready " f sentences from the same pen ; '• I 

* 30th Cong. 1st Sess. Ex. Doc. 60. House of Rep. pp. 1139—1142. 

t '' Routrh and Ready : " tliis phrase occurs in Carlyle's edition of 
'•the Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell," First Parliament, 
Speech Second. 1845. 



ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 149 

deeply regret to report that many of the twelve months' vol- 
unteers in their route hence of (to) the lower Rio Grande, 
have committed extensive depredations and outrages upon 
the peaceful inhabitants. There is scarcely a form of crime 
that has not been reported to me as committed by them ; but 
they have passed beyond my reach, and even were they here, 
it would be found next to impossible to detect the individuals 
who thus disgrace their colors and their country. Were it 
possible to rouse the jNIexican people to resistance, no more 
effectual plan could be devised than the very one pursued 
by some of our volnnteer regimentii noAv about to be dis- 
charged. 

" The volunteers for the war, so far, give an earnest of 
better conduct, with the exception of the companies of Texas 
horse. Of the infantry I have had little or no complaint ; 
but the mounted men from Texas have scarcely made one 
expedition without unwarrantably kilhng a Mexican. I 
have, in consequence, ordered Major Chevallies' command 
to Saltillo, where it can do less mischief than here, and where 
its services moreover are wanted. The constant recurrence 
of such atrocities, which I have been i-eluetant to report to 
the department, is my motive for requesting t?(at no more 
troops may he sent to this column from the state of Texas^ * 

A few items respecting the invading " Army of the West " 
will give a like melancholy picture of unbridled passions and 
cruel and disgraceful excesses, at which every feeling of 
common justice and humanity cries out with horror. But 
we record these things not to heap opprobrium upon indi- 
viduals, but to demonstrate the abominableness of a system ; 
vre do it not, because we love our country loss, but because 
we love peace and right more. 

F. S. Edwards in his work, "A Campaign in New Mex- 
ico," says, when at Ceralvo, " I have been credibly informed 
that when these rangers are sent out on scouting parties, a 

* 30tli C\ n j;. 1 .>t ^'e'^<i. ' x. Doc. No. 60. p. 1 178. The italics are ours. 
1.3* 



160 ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 

Mexican guide is generally provided, but that lie never 
returns ; the Texans always shooting him on some pretext 
or other before he gets back. * * * 

" One of the most dastardly acts I ever heard of was per- 
petrated by half a dozen Texan officers a short time before 
we came down. They had lost their way, and hired a Mex- 
ican to show them to their camp, which he faithfully per- 
formed ; but when they came in sight of it, they drew lots 
who should shoot their faithful and unsuspecting guide ; — 
the one on whom the lot fell, immediately drew a pistol and 
shot him." 

The same author relates that in his march from Camargo 
to Reinosa, one of the party incautiously advanced two or 
three hundred yards ahead of the guard, and was shot by 
some Mexicans who were seen riding oflF at full speed. His 
comrades when they arrived at the next small town, searched 
for the murderers, and having as they su^jposed found them, 
killed seven men, and burned down the house in which they 
were found. 

Dr. Wislizenus, in "a Memoir of a Tour to North- 
ern Mexico," published under authority of Congress,* 
writing under the head of Parras, May 14, 1847, says ; 
" one of our waggon drivers, a very quiet man, had been 
assaulted by a Mexican loafer, and received several 
wounds, from the effect of which he afterwards died. As 
the prefect of Parras was not able to find out the guilty 
person, the friends of the wounded man took revenge on 
some Mexicans, and more disturbance would have grown 
out of it, if we had stayed longer." 

We quote another passage from the same book. " About 
six miles from Marin, is the spot where General Canales, 
with his guerilla bands, had captured, some months past, 
a rich train of the American army, and killed most of the 
unarmed waggon diivers. The bones of these ill-fated 

* 30th Congress, 1st Session, Senate. Miscellaneous, No, 26. p. 73, 78. 



ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 151 

men, which were either not buried at all, or dragged out 
by the wolves, were scattered about in aU directions. 
Another more horrid spectacle offered itself to our eyes 
near Agua Negra, a deserted village, where a man (and to 
judge from pieces of clothing, an American) had been burnt 
to ashes, some bones only being left. In seeing such hor- 
rors, known only in old Indian warfare, can any one 
blame the American troops for having sought revenge, and 
burning all the villages and ranchos on their route 
which gave refuge to such bands of worse than highway 
robbers? The right of retaliation, (?) as well as expediency, 
command, in my opinion, such measures against such unu- 
sual warfare ; and when carried out with some circum- 
spection, it will break up those guerilla bands much sooner 
than too lenient a course." 

He states that at Ceralvo on May 22, 1847, Nicholas 
Garcia, a well known chief of a guerilla band, "who was 
said to have committed many cruelties against Ameri- 
cans," was captured by some Texan Rangers, and shot the 
same day in the public Plaza ; " dying like a brave man." 

The following extract from the orders of Gen. Wool will 
speak for itself. 

Headquarters^ Army of Occupation, ) 
Monterey, Mexico, February, 27, 1848. ) 

" A band of American robbers, composed principally of 
deserters (chiefly from the Texas Battalion, and Captain 
Mear's company of Volunteer Cavalry,) dishonorably dis- 
charged soldiers, and followers of the Army, have been 
ravaging the country from Parras to the Presidio de Rio 
Grande, ravishing the women, and committing every spe- 
cies of atrocity on the defenceless inhabitants. 

" A similar party has recently robbed an entire village, 
under the pretence of being a detachment of the American 
Army, sent to levy contributions on the place. 



152 ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 

" These acts so criminal in themselves, and reflecting so 
much approbrium on the American name, call upon every 
one to make all j)ossible exertions to apprehend the villains, 
and bring them to punishment. The officers commanding 
at Monclova, Presidio, Laredo, JSiier, and Ceralvo wiU 
endeavor to effect this object by every means in their power." 

By command of brigadier General Wool, 

Irvin McDowell, A. A. G." 

It is unnecessary to go into California and New Mexico, 
and adduce testimony of a like ignominious character 
against some of the actors in the Mexican war. It might 
be said that in those remote and barbarous regions nothing 
but outrage and revenge could be expected. We will come 
then to the theatre of Gen. Scott's operations from Vera 
Cruz to Mexico, and substantiate the general truth of the 
statements made, by his own indignant words. 

The difficulties began at the very outset of the Campaign. 
Gen. Scott reports to the Department at home, in a letter 
dated Vera Cruz, April 5, 1847 ;* " the seven old volun- 
teer regiments with me, now become respectable in discipline 
and efficiency, cannot fail to give us much trouble when the 
time of their discharge and transportation back to their 
homes, shall arrive." 

" The inhabitants of this city, under the excellent gov- 
ernment of Brevet Major General Worth, are beginning to 
be assured of protection, and to be cheerful. Those in the 
vicinity have suffisred more from green recruits, who 
much dilute the regular companies, and from volunteers. 
My last orders, No. 87, herewith, against outrages, have ral- 
lied thousands of good soldiers to the support of authority. 
In the mean time, claims for damages, principally on the 
part of neutrals, through their consuls, have been many. 

«= 30th Coiijrrcss, Ist Session, Ex. Doc. No. 60. pp. 910, 914. 



ILLEGITIMATE BABARITIES. 153 

I am without authority or means to indemnify, and can only 
f 'el and deplore the disgrace brought upon our ai'ms by 
undetected villains." 

These extracts ai-e from the orders above mentioned, 
dated Vera Cruz, April 1, 1847. "Notwithstanding the 
strong provisions of printed general orders, No. 20, pro- 
claiming martial law, many undoubted atrocities have been 
committed in this neighborhood, by a few worthless soldiers, 
both regulars and volunteers, which, though stamping dis- 
grace upon the whole army, remain unpunished, because 
the criminals have not been seized, and reported by eye- 
witnesses of the atrocities. * * * 

" One more appeal is made to the ninety-seven honorable 
men, against, perhaps, the three miscreants in every 
hundred. Certainly the great mass ought not to allow them- 
selves to be dishonored by a handful of scoundrels, who 
scout all religion, morals, law and decency. Therefore 
let every bad man be denounced in his act of guilt, seized, 
and reported for trial, and this army will march in triumph, 
and be every where kindly received, and supplied with 
necessaries and comforts by the peaceful and unoffending 
inhabitants of the country." 

We have spoken in another connection of the hanging 
of Isaac Kirk, a free colored citizen of the United States, 
at Vera Cruz, April 10, 1847. 

It is needless to encumber these pages with detailed 
accounts of the outrages to persons, property and liberty, 
which marked the course of the American Army, and the 
horrible deeds done by bands of the Mexican guerillas. 
They are a part of the history of the war, but they find 
little space for memory except on the tablets of those 
bruised and broken hearts that encountered the storm of 
invasion. 

The American commander writes from the city of Mexico, 
Oct. 13, 1847 : "I have heard of many outrages and dis- 



154 ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 

orders said to have been committed bv Major Lally's 
detachment about Jalapa. I trust that the rumors greatly 
exaggerate the facts ; or rather that they are entirely false. 
I will tolerate no disorders of any kind, but cause all to be 
rigorously punished. No officer or man, under my orders, 
shall be allowed to dishonor me, the army, and the United 
States with impunity." 

In a letter, dated Dec. 25, 1847, he says further ; " I do 
not mean to accuse the reinforcements generally of de- 
ficiency in valor, patriotism, or moral character. Far from 
it ; but among all new levies, of whatever denomination, 
there are always a few miscreants in every hundred; 
enough without discipline to disgrace the entire mass, and 
what is infinitely worse, — the country that employs them. 
My daily distresses under this head weigh me to the 
earth." 

The following extract from an American correspondent 
in the city of Mexico will illustrate the nature of some of 
Gen. Scott's " distresses." 

" On Sunday night a Texan Ranger named Adam 
Alsence, of Capt. Robert's company, was attacked by a 
number of Mexicans in the suburbs of the city, and killed. 
He was mangled in a brutal manner, and the Texans, exas- 
perated at the cruel death of their comrade, sallied into the 
streets the next evening, to the number of fifteen or twenty, 
and proceeding to the quarter where Alsence was killed, 
took fearful vengeance upon a party whom they found armed 
with pistols and knives. Seventeen of the Mexicans are 
reported killed, and forty wounded. Alsence was a Ger- 
man, and served in Bonaparte's Cavalry and was a good 
and faithful soldier."* 

* The following is an extract from a letter in the New Orleans 
DeZto, dated City of Mexico, Dec. 13, 1847. "About an hour ago, 
some of them, (Texans) were quietly passing through one of the 
Btreets, when a crowd of leperos gathered around them, and commenced 



ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 155 

The following is an extract from a letter to Gen. Scott 
from Santa Anna relative to the renewal of hostilities after 
the armistice and the fruitless attempt to negotiate a peace. 
He says, and with the above declarations of the Ameri- 
can General in our recollection, we shall probably think 
that he does not speak altogether a la Mexique ; " I have 
with pain and indignation, received communications from 
the cities and towns occupied by the army of your ex- 
cellency, upon the violations of temples consecrated to 
the worship of God ; upon the robbery of the sacred ves- 
sels, and profanation of the images, venerated by the 
Mexican people. I have been profoundly afflicted by the 
complaints of fathers and husbands upon the violation of 
their wives and daughters. Those same cities and towns 
have been sacked, not only in violation of the armistice, but 
even of the sacred principles recognized and observed by 
civilized nations. I had guarded silence until now, for the 
purpose of not chilling a negotiation that gave hopes of 
terminating a scandalous war, which your excellency has 
justly characterized as unnatural."* 

A few words in conclusion. The dark and dismal pages 
through which we have led our readers in these chapters are 
but too easily interpreted. They are the old story of war. 
They are the picture, not only of stately battles, in which 
horror is legitimated, but of a running warfare, embittered 
by old Texan feuds, and* waged between the half-savage 

throwing stones ; — the result of which was, that in a very few minutes 
thex-e were ten dead Mexicans lying in the street, and two men, badly 
wounded, taken to the guard-house." 

Another paper records the following. " The Area Iris says a de- 
tachment of Amex-ican soldiei-s quartered at Medelin, started for a ball 
in the village about 11 o'clock at night. The l)a]l party took alarm, 
and one of them discharged a pistol at the advancing Amei-icans, who 
returned the fix-e, killing seven, and wounding nine, one of whom 
vs^as a woman." 

* 30th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, Ex. Doc. No. 52, p 347. 



156 MILITARY EXECUTIONS. 

guerillas of Mexico, and the lynch-gangs of the border and 
hunter emigrant population of the Western and South West- 
ern United States, whose conduct on their way to the seat of 
war, gave evidence to the cities through which they passed, 
what would be the fulfilment of their cai-eer when they were 
poured into Mexico. Beasts of prey are dangerous when 
they are set loose. The regular soldier may have a species 
of war-conscience, which is better than none at all. But 
they who go on a human hunt for the love of it, may be ex- 
pected to dabble in blood even if it be a Httle out of the reg- 
ular " orders." 

But after crossing such streams of gore as we have now 
waded through, three questions arise which we would respect- 
ively offer to the consideration of both parties, the advoca,tes 
of war, and the friends of peace. 

1. What national right can be redressed by an infinite 
series of individual wrongs ? 

2. What true glory can be found in connection with the 
perpetration of endless injuries and miseries ? 

3. What "healing peace," to use an official phrase, can 
be cemented by a boundless expenditure of life and treasure, 
or based on the memory of ten thousand cruelties, suffer- 
ings, and wrongs ? 



CHAPTER XIII. 

MILITARY EXECUTIONS. 

*' But grow like savages, — as soldiers will, 

That nothing do but meditate on blood." — Shakspeare. 

Another list of the barbarities of the Mexican war in- 
cludes the punishments inflicted upon deserters and other 
criminals. Many who have been most strenuous advocates 



MILITARY EXECUTIONS. 157 

of this war, are earnestly opposed to capital punishment. 
But their inconsistency will be apparent when it is recollect- 
ed, that probably more persons have been shot and hung for 
various crimes by the American officers in Mexico during the 
last two years, than would be capitally executed in the whole 
United States in the ordinary course of justice during ten 
years. Some of these executions, too, have been conducted 
in a manner repulsive to every humane and Christian senti- 
ment. 

As the American army contained many Irish, German, and 
other emigrants from Europe, the Mexican generals issued 
proclamations, and employed every means in their power to 
entice away the soldiers from their allegiance. They offered 
large bounties to deserters, promising land and money to 
officers and soldiers, and giving the officers a guaranty that 
they should retain their former military rank. 

These exertions were far from being in vain, for no sooner 
was Gen. Taylor encamped on the banks of the Rio Grande, 
than the desertions began, and according to the Report of the 
Secretary of War, made to the Senate, April 10, 1848, the 
enormous number of 4,966 men had deserted in Mexico from 
the troops of the United States. In fact, whole platoons in 
some instances either went over to the enemy, or returned 
home. The Matamoras Flag stated that on Dec. 22, 1847, 
about 25 Texan Rangers deserted at one time from Saltillo, 
and came home. Other cases occurred of a similar char- 
acter. 

To save the army from such disorders, severe punishment, 
as imprisonment, whipping, and other barbaric inflictions were 
resorted to, and a considerable number were put to death for 
desertion, murder, or other crimes. 

T. B. Thorpe mentions, that two men were shot in the act 
of desertion at Matamoras, and that several were drowned 
in attempting to swim the river. Gen. Taylor, in a letter to 
the Department, dated May 30, 1846, confirms the account, 

14 



158 MILITARY EXECUTIONS. 

and says, that soon after his " arrival on the Rio Grande the 
evil of desertion made its appearance, and increased to an 
alarming extent ; " and that verbal orders Avere given to the 
pickets to hail those who were swimming the river, and if 
they did not return, to shoot them on the spot. 

The Matamoras Flag states that five Mexican gueril- 
las were hung Dec. 19, 1847, in the main plaza of Saltillo 
for the murder of three discharged Mississippians at Rinco- 
nada Pass ; and that an American named Neazum was hung 
a few days previously, for having murdered a Mexican in the 
streets of the city. 

The Chicago Tribune records the death of Lieut. James 
M. Stewart, of Niles, IVIichigan, who was hung in Mexico for 
having been enraged at a superior officer who struck him, 
and having run him through with his sword. It goes on to 
remark, that " an interesting family, consisting of a wife and 
several young children, are thus de2:)rived of husband, father, 
and protector. This is another of the legitimate fraits of 
bloody, infamous, brutal, forever-to-be-detested war." 

Isaac Kirk, a free man of color, according to Gen. Scott's 
Reports of April, 1847, was hung at Vera Cruz for " com- 
mitting or attempting to commit a rape " upon a Mexican 
woman ; and in an Address to the Mexican people, he appeals 
and says, " is this not a proof of good faith and energetic 
discipline ? " 

Two young Mexicans of rank and refinement were exe- 
cuted Nov. 24, 1847, in the city of Jalapa. 

The Vera Cruz Indicator has the following account of 
the affair : — 

" Gen. Patterson, while in Jalapa, governed with a rigid 
hand. The Mexicans complain bitterly of the recent execu- 
tion, under his directions, of two young officers, Ambrosio 
Alcalde and Antonio Garcia, who were taken at Jalconumco 
with a party of guerillas, some time since, and who were 
alleged to have broken their parole. This the two officers 



MILITARY EXECUTIONS. 159 

and their friends denied, but the evidence was too strong 
against them to permit their escape. 

" When the sentence was pubhshed, the whole city rose to 
beg for the lives of the young men, and deputations were sent 
to Gen. Patterson from the council, from the resident for- 
eigners, from the clergy, regular and secular, from the ladies 
of the principal families, and the ladies of the convents, be- 
seeching him to spare the lives of the unhappy youths, but 
without avail. They were hanged in the Plazuela de San 
Jose at noon of the 24th ultimo. Their bodies were delivered 
over to their friends, and after lying in state a few hours, 
were buried with the highest honors that public grief could 
devise. The whole city put on mourning, solemn proces- 
sions lined every street, and the miserere was chanted in the 
churches. A gloom was thi'own over the city which is not 
yet dissipated." 

The Arco Iris, says that " Gen. Patterson's division left 
Jalapa on the 25th ult. Before his departure, he hung, on 
the 23d, two American teamsters, for having killed a Mexi- 
can boy 12 years old." 

Reynolds, an American soldier of the 8th Regiment of 
Infantry, was hung at Jalapa on Dec. 29, 1847, for the mur- 
der of some Mexican women. 

The National Intelligencer recorded the execution at Sal- 
tillo on Dec. 28, 1847, of Victor Galbraith, a bugler in Capt. 
Miers' company of volunteer cavalry, who was shot for 
threatening the captain^ s life I 

But the most cruel and sanguinary scene that was proba- 
bly ever enacted in war under the form of its Draconic code 
of laws, occurred at the villages of San Angel and IVIixcoac 
in the valley of Mexico. On the 9th of September, 1847, 
16 deserters were hung at San Angel, and on the 10th, 4 
were hung at Mixcoac. But as if these victims were not 
enough to glut the cruel spirit of war, on the 13th, 30 more 
were hung at Mixcoac, making in all 50 victims of capital 



160 MILITARY EXECUTIONS. 

punishment in four days. Without crediting the Mexican 
account that they were noosed by the neck and drawn up, 
and that they died by inches by being strangled with their 
own weight, their agony lasting more than an hour ; it is 
nevertheless an unquestioned fact, that, in the last case of 
execution, the poor wretches, in order to slake the tliirst of 
vengeance, and " to associate with the glory of their regiments 
the gloom of their tribunals," were pinioned, ropes put around 
their necks, and each man placed under a gallows, and there 
made to wait nearly two hours, with death staring them in the 
face, until, according to the declaration and promise of the 
presiding officer, a colonel, whose name shall not pass our 
pen, the neighboring heights of Chapultepec, then assaulted 
by the American troops, were carried ; and that when the 
American flag was planted on that fortress, thirty men were in- 
stantly launched into eternity ! We ask why have not the 
official reports of these transactions been published, with the 
other numerous documents of the war, if they are not too 
black and odious to bear the light of day, and the free judg- 
ment of a people, professing to be governed by the humane 
spirit of Christianity ? 

" The rest of this battalion of San Patricio,* under the 
command of Reilly, who were captured when desperately 
fighting at Contreras and Churubusco against the Americans, 
were severely punished ; some by being " whipped with fifty 
lashes each, the letter D. for deserter being branded with a 
red hot iron upon the cheek, and then condemned to wear an 
iron yoke weighing eight pounds, with three prongs, each one 

foot in length around the neck ; to be confined at hard labor 



* Nativity of the Deserters. — The Neio Yoi-h Police Gazette con- 
tains " the names and places of nativity of the deserters recently recap- 
tured by our army, from which we are sorry to learn that a large por- 
tion were Americans. They are classed as follows : Americans 54, 
Irishmen 34, Germans 1 7, Scotch 4, and one each from England, Nova 
Scotia, France and Poland. 



MILITARY EXECUTIONS. 161 

in charge of the guard during the time the army should re- 
main in Mexico, and then to have their heads shaved, and to 
be di'ummed out of the service ; " and others were flogged 
with 200 lashes each, after being compelled to dig the graves 
of their companions, who were executed. 

Several others, both officers and soldiers, by the names of 
llai-e, Button, Madson, Wragg, Stewart, Wall, and others, 
were convicted at Mexico of burglary and murder, after the 
city was occupied by Scott, and sentenced to be hung, but 
tliey were afterwards respited, or wholly pardoned. 

Ruxton, in his "Adventures in Mexico," p. 230, says, 
in reference to the revolution in New Mexico, Jan., 1847, 
that "the troops marched out of Santa Fe, attacked their 
pueblo, and leveled it to the ground, killing many hundreds 
of its defenders, and taking many prisoners, most of whom 
were hanged." Another account states, that " fifteen Mexi- 
cans were executed as conspirators." 

One man was executed at the town of Santa Cruz on Mon- 
terey Bay, in California. 

We record then in all, 82 Americans and Mexicans, 
who were shot or hanged by the martial law, by the 
Americans, — and we probably have not ascertained all, 
— an amoimt of capital punishment, small indeed by 
the side of the wholesale slaughter of the battle-field, but 
worthy of being considered by those who are strenuous advo- 
cates of the repeal of the death-penalty, for it is, as we have 
said, a greater number than would sufier thus in the ordinary 
course of criminal justice in ten years in the United States. 
14* 



I 7 

v.. 



162 ILLEGALITIES. 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

ILLEGALITIES. 

" Laws are silent in war." — Cicero. 

It has already been strongly intimated, if not declared in so 
many words, that the laws of nations, and the constitution and 
laws of our own country, have been repeatedly and flagrantly 
broken in the war with Mexico. But in order to set this 
subject in a more vivid light, we propose to devote this chap- 
ter, if not the most important, at least one of the most 
curious, in the history of the day, to the various illegalities 
which have been committed. Other portions of this review 
will sufficiently demonstrate the opposition of the war to 
every principle of liberty and Christianity, but it will be the 
aim of these few pages to elucidate its equal antagonism to the 
laws of man, and to show that when even a civilized people 
burst through the enclosures of truth and riglit, they mani- 
fest in many respects the same reckles^ disregard of human 
statutes and constitutions, as is thought to belong to earlier 
stages of society. 

Numerous unlawful acts preceded the war. The con- 
quest of Mexican territory by citizens of the United States, 
with the connivance, if not the aid, of the national and State 
government, was contrary to the law of nations. The seiz- 
ure of Monterey, in California, Oct. 19, 1842, by Commo- 
dore Jones, was a lawless act, disavowed indeed by the 
Government, but the perpetrator was never punished. The 
annexation of Texas, by a joint resolution, was contrary to 



ILLEGALITIES. 163 

our treaty with Mexico, to the comity of nations, and to the 
Constitution of the United States. 

The act of war at first was illegal. It was a violation of 
the law of nations to enter a disputed territory, and hold it 
by force of arms, when it was fully conceded that it was 
debatable ground, and when we had recognized Mexican 
custom-houses within the year in that same territory by 
specific acts of Congress. Detailed proofs and illustrations 
of this point are contained in chapter seventh, and need not 
be recounted. 

The origin of the war also was contrary to the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. By this instrument it is reserved 
to Congress " to declare war, repel invasions." But by a 
vote of the House of Representatives, Jan 3, 1848, it was 
resolved, that the war with Mexico " was unnecessarily and 
unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United 
States ;" and distinguished statesmen deliberately expressed 
their opinion, that he had brought himself within the peril 
of an impeachment. Mr. Calhoun said in the Senate, 
March 17, 1848, "I hold that the President had no more 
right to order the army to march into the disputed territory, 
than he had to order it to march into Mexico.* 

The difficulties with Mexico were not brought before 
Congress, although then in session, until Gen. Taylor had 
commenced hostilities ; and Avhen the question was presented 
by an Executive Message, it was hurried to a decision in a 
surprise and panic, without the documents appended to it 
being allowed to be even read, and without any proper de- 
bate or deliberation. 

The object of the war was an illegal and unconstitutional 
one. There are provisions in the Constitution to repel inva- 
sions, but not to make them. Far as heaven is from earth, 
was the thought of the framers of that instrument from sanc- 

* Printed speech, p. 16. 



164 ILLEGALITIES- 

tioning by one syllable of theirs the spirit of conquest. Be- 
sides, liberty is the spirit of that great charter, and a war to 
extend slavery, the slave-trade, and the political power of 
slavery, clashes with the genius of Independence. What is 
its preamble ? " We, the people of the United States, in 
order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure 
domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, pro- 
mote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to 
ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Con- 
stitution of the United States of America." 

The progress of the war was attended by many pro- 
ceedings as much at vai'iance with the laws of man as 
the laws of God. For the details we refer to other chap- 
ters of this work. The expedition of Fremont into Cali- 
fornia, in 1845 and 1840, was palpably unjustifiable, and 
its purpose but very thinly disguised. The absolution by 
Gen. Kearney of the inhabitants of New Mexico and 
California, from their allegiance to Mexico, his compelling 
the native officers to take the oath of allegiance to the 
United States,* and the execution as traitors by other com- 
manders of those who rose and attempted to destroy their 
invaders^ and shake off their control, were deeds that find no 
justification in the recognized laws of nations, however sanc- 
tioned by the bloody code of Mars. Many other illegitimate 
barbarities of the war are recounted in chapter thirteenth. 

The introduction from abroad into Mexico, while the war 
was waging, by a written passport of the Executive, of the 
greatest General that country could boast, in the person of 
Santa Anna, who immediately j)laced himself at the head of 
large armies, and caused an immense loss of life and trea- 
sure to the Americans, was palpably against the rule for- 
bidding to " give aid and comfort" to the enemies of our 
country, though the intention no doubt was to secure an 

* 30th Congress, 1st Session, Ex. Doc. No. 41, jip. 27, 28. 



ILLEGALITIES. 1G5 

earlier peace, and tlie cession of the territories which were 
coveted. 

The annexation of the territories of New Mexico and 
Cahfornia, by General Kearney and Commodore Stockton 
to the United States, before any treaty of peace had been 
made, and before Congress had passed any act to that effect, 
were high-handed violations of the Constitution, and also of 
the law of nations. They were too gross to be owned as 
acts of the Government even in this history of illegalities, 
and, like not a few of the ot"her measures of the command- 
ing officers in Mexico, were condemned at Washington.* 

The establishment in Mexico of a system of tariffs and 
taxes by the dictation of the Executive of the United States, 
without any sanction or cooperation on the part of the 
popular branch of Government, f the appropriation of the 
moneys thus collected to whatever uses the Executive 
thought best, and the appointment under such a scheme of a 
multitude of custom-house officers and pay-masters, were 
measures declared both by Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Webster, 
to be invasions of the laws and constitution of the United 
States. 

The dangerous march of Executive Power was further 

=* 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Doc. No. 
60, p. 150 ; 30th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, Ex. Doc. No. 33, p. 410. 

t " 6. On the failure of any State to pay its assessments, its function- 
aries, as above, will be seized and imprisoned^ and their property seized, 
'registered, reported, and converted to the use of occupation, in strict accord- 
ance to the general regulations of this army. No resignation or abdi- 
cation of office by any of the said Mexican functionaries shall excuse 
one of them from any of the above obligations or penalties." See also 
Art. 3, 30th Congress, 1st Session, Ex. Doc. No. 60, p. 1064. It would 
have been a very natural mistake if we supposed we had alighted on 
one of the military laws of Santa Anna, or some other chieftain, in the 
above severe enactment, not that it was in very truth a regulation of 
one of those Generals who came professing to free the poor Mexicans from 
military tyrants ! 



166 ILLEGALITIES. 

manifested by the creation of civil governments, the appoint- 
ing of tlie various officers, magistrates, and judges, neces- 
sary to carry them on, and the allotment of their duties and 
salaries, without any reference to the authority of Congress, 
or any appeal to its judgment, any more than if tTiat body 
had been non-existent. 

The conclusion of the war was also in harmony with its 
commencement, object, and progress, tainted with the same 
disregard of forms and rules of law. Mr. Trist had been 
recalled by the power which appointed him as confidential 
commissioner to negotiate a peace, but he chose still to re- 
main in Mexico on his own responsibility ; and the plenipo- 
tentiaries of that nation, with a knowledge of that fact, did 
not hesitate to conclude a treaty with him.* The record of 
his name, therefore, as an officer of the United States, on 
that document, was not in accordance with the fact of the 
case. 

The commissioners, Messrs Clifford and Sevier, conveyed 
the treaty of peace, as amended by the Senate, to Mexico, to 
procure its ratification by the Government of that country. 
The changes made by the Senate, were the substitution of 
the third article of the treaty of Louisiana in the place of 
the ninth article of this treaty, relative to the rights of Mex- 
icans in the annexed territories ; the entire suppression of 
the tenth article, relative to Mexican grants in the terri- 
tories, and the alteration of the twelfth article, relative to the 
mode of payment by the United States of $15,000,000 to 
Mexico. The Mexican Government refused to ratify the 
treaty until the American commissioners had signed a pro- 
tocol, declaring that no essential changes had been made, and 
explaining the ground of the several amendments.* The 
protocol was, however, regarded by many in Congress as 

* 30th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, Ex. Doc. No. 52, pp. 5, 38 ; 
30tli Congress, 2nd Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. No. 
50, p. 11, et passim. 



ILLEGALITIES. 167 

virtually involving a new agreement on the part of the 
United States, and its concealment by the Executive for 
nearly a year from the knowledge of Congress, Avas deemed 
another specimen of illegal and unconstitutional proceeding. 
We have thus baldly and briefly indicated some of the 
gross and generally-conceded illegalities which have charac- 
terized the war. Monarchies may trample upon the laws, 
and live, because they are based upon might. Republics 
may trample upon their constitutions, but they will die, be- 
cause they are founded upon right. The only loyalty pos- 
sible in our country, is a loyalty to the Constitution and 
laws, always coupled with the liberty to amend them and 
square them by the laws of God, and when that sense of 
allegiance is gone, the sheet-anchor of the republic parts in 
twain. The laws of the land are not the perfect expression 
of the supreme right and truth. But they are the highest 
yet seen and realized by the mass of the people ; and to lift 
a violent hand against them, to violate them with impunity, 
is to weaken the sole restraints that remain to hold in check 
the turbulent forces of the country. We are admonished by 
mobs in our Atlantic cities, and Mormon wars and lynchings 
in our western borders, and by the new plans of military ad- 
venture coming to light, hatched by this war, that this is no 
period in the history of our republic to relax, by word or 
deed, the sacred bonds of the Constitution and the laws. 



168 POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR AT HOME. 



CHAPTER XV. 

POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR AT HOME. 

" Of all the enemies of public liberty war is perhaps the most to be 
dreaded. It is the parent of armies ; from these proceed debts and 
taxes ; and armies, and debts, and taxes, are the well-known instru- 
ments for bringing the many under the dominion of the few. War is 

the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. No nation could 

preserve its freedom in the midst of continued warfare. These truths 
are Avell established." — Madison. 

The science of politics, wisely viewed, is a great and a 
good science. It highly concerns the welfare of states and 
nations. Its principles are noble when they are drawn from 
the laws of God. And .the art of government, or the carry- 
ing out and realization of these lofty principles, is a glorious 
art. Politics, whether as an art or a science, have fallen into 
low esteem with many sensible people, simply on account of 
the chicanery of politicians, and not because the work of 
organizing and governing mankind is not in itself of the 
highest dignity and moment. 

And if these declarations hold good of politics and govern- 
ment in general, then are they doubly true of the science 
and administration of republican institutions. For here gov- 
ernment exists and is moulded by the consent and will of 
the governed. Castes, conventional ideas and arrangements 
give way before simpler and truer views of man's relation to 
man. Freedom is but one of the deep seminal principles of 
republican and Christian politics. Duties require to be con- 
sidered as well as rights. Mutual help is as essential as 
personal independence. Love must be the vital air of a self- 



POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR AT H03IE. 160 

governing community. And he who, possessed and quick- 
ened himself by these life-giving sentiments, seeks by act 
and word, seeks above all by the just and benevolent conduct 
of public affairs, to diffuse them abroad and impress them on 
the heart of a whole nation, and give a high-toned moral 
character to its history and destiny, occupies the position of 
an archangel for doing good, — wide and lasting good to his 
race. 

It is when we have taken this more elevated and compre- 
hensive view of the real grandeur of human government, 
when rightly administered, that we descend to the considera- 
tion of such a chapter in our national career, as that of the 
Mexican war, with the most loathing and repugnance. We 
think no event has ever occurred, since the establishment of 
the Federal constitution, so ominous to the prospects of our 
country in particular, or free institutions in general, as this 
invasion. Not that we despair of the republic. Not that 
we have lost one jot of our faith in the capabiUty of man for 
republican governments. Not that we see any immediate 
signs of the overthrow of any one of our chartered and con- 
stitutional rights and privileges. But we are taught by an 
impressive and tremendous example, that republics may, 
under all the forms of freedom, full-blown and flourishing, 
do deeds, incur responsibilities, hazard evils, and inflict inju- 
ries, at which any old barbaric monarchy might well stand 
aghast. Still more pungently has the solemn lesson been 
tlirilled through our hearts, that if we would have a country 
worth the name of Liberty and the love and service of free- 
men, if we would save the name, — republic, — from becom- 
ing a hissing and a scorn in the earth, and if we would res- 
cue this gigantic empire of the West from sinking into the 
Babylon of the nations, we need to ply in season and out of 
season, with all our characteristic energy as a people, the 
means of intellectual, social, and religious life, the school, 
the press, and the church, in all their purity and power. 

15 



170 POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR AT HOME. 

Our single trust and hope are in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, 
to save us as a heritage of freedom, from destruction, or 
from a warlike, Roman ambition, worse than destruction. 
This and this only can clarify the intellect, exalt the aims, 
chasten the passions, and sanctify the career of a mighty 
people, bursting away in their untamable energies from all 
the revered landmarks of the past, and seemingly taking 
counsel chiefly of their own impassioned youth. But God 
works by human agencies. And this Gospel, divine as it is 
in its source, and competent as it is as an illuminator and 
Mentor, needs to be sent abroad as freely as the flowing 
waters, and the sweeping breezes, to reach, and elevate, and 
save the millions of the ignorant, the superstitious, the de- 
praved, and the young, throughout our land. 

With these, and similar connected views of the value of 
Christian politics, we approach the subject of the political 
character and issues of this conquest, and we would consider 
it not for one moment as partisans, for such we are not, but 
as calm and impartial patriots, without reference to parties. 
Indeed, in the very matter of this war, so far as parties had 
anything to do with it, and any guilt rests upon its planners 
and actors, we see both the great parties involved more or 
less in carrying it on ; we shall not stop in this Review 
to ask, which was more, and which was less. Both parties 
voted men and money. Both parties fought its battles. Both 
parties talked of the glory gained by the victories. Both 
parties have brought home candidates for the highest national 
offices and honors from its red fields. Both parties have, we 
believe, to a considerable extent given their sanction to this 
conflict, and endorsed its effects ; while in both parties have 
been found its earnest denouncers, in its inception, its pro- 
gress, and its results ; witness the words of the great states- 
man of New England and those of the great statesman of 
the South ; both eminent leaders of their respective parties. 
\Ye choose then to regard this war as the act of the country, 



POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR AT HOME. 171 

and iK)t the act of any party. As such we review it, criticize 
it, and condemn it. The nation's mind must have been par- 
tially clouded, and the nation's soul must have been tempo- 
rarily hardened, to declare hostilities and carry out this giant 
system of evil during two long years. At whatever point, 
or in whatever person or persons, the evil came to a head, 
the evil itself must have widely permeated the veins of the 
whole republic. No single act could have brought on the 
crisis, had there not been a general war-spirit smouldering 
deeply in multitudes of hearts, entirely irrespective of all 
parties, which only needed one breath of the bellows to blow 
it into a flame. 

We think it better to attribute much of such movements 
in human affairs to the public sentiment that is behind all 
the forms of law, and that is mightier than the throne itself. 
We prefer to take much of the guilt of this and Hke deeds 
to ourselves, and to remember, that if we have not approved 
of the precise thing in question, we have probably approved 
of much which may have been instrumental of leading to 
such a catastrophe. We have all drank too much of the 
belligerent spirit. 

The demon of war has not yet been exorcised out of the 
heart of Christendom. We do much to prepare for war. 
We educate our youth in war-history and war-poetry. We 
honor the soldier's calling, as a calling. We spend in time 
of profound peace more for war than we do for peace. We 
encourage military education, reviews, drills, musters. We 
manufacture myriads of arms. We put a musket in every 
house, and a sword in every hand. We stud our ports with 
grim war-ships, and encamp our militia in every village. And 
it is not in human nature to be thus always and expressly 
and enthusiastically preparing for a thing, and never doing 
the thing itself. Some militia may be necessary as a poHce, 
though they often occasion more riots than they suppress. 
But the boundless preparations everywhere made in all 



172 POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR AT HOME. 

civilized countries for war, unquestionably do much to pre- 
cipitate international conflicts. Men who have been learning 
the art of destruction all their days, will occasionally seek 
and create the opportunities to reduce their art to practice. 
He who goes armed with a bowie-knife, will be likely some- 
times to use it. 

We proceed now, after these preliminaries, to consider 
some of the political evils which have resulted from the event 
in question. 

And in view of these evils, and of others which time may 
yet develop, we honor the fearless resistance, and the pro- 
phetic sagacity, with which the great statesman of South 
Carolina, in company with others, plead for deliberation, 
when the nation were about embarking precipitately in the 
war. 

"In the present condition of the world," he said, "war 
was a tremendous thing. The whole sentiment of the civ- 
ilized world was turning stronger and stronger against 
war. And let us not, for the honor of our country, — for 
the dignity of the republic, be the first to create a state of 
war. Mortal man cannot see the end of it. When I look 
and see that we are rushing upon this most tremendous event, 
I am amazed. I am more than amazed, — I am in a state 
of wonder and deep alarm." 

One of the principal justifications of this warfare against 
our neighbors was the alleged vindication of the national 
honor. We had been injured by Mexico, and we must return 
injury for injury. We must show that we would not be 
maltreated with impunity. We must demonstrate by the 
glory of our arms that republican institutions could do as 
much, as those of a monarchy, to render us formidable in 
war. Such in brief was the argument. But we propose to 
suggest, that instead of " covering ourselves with glory," as 
the military phrase runs, we have contracted a serious re- 
proach among the nations, and lowered instead of raising, 
the true reputation of the United States, as a repubhc. 



POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR AT HOME. 173 

We are far from denying that the words, " national honor '* 
are words of pith and moment. Though often used pro- 
fanely, they have a sacred significance. They are capable 
of making the heart beat quicker, and of rousing in the true 
man a noble thrill of sentiment. True national honor is 
worth everything. It is the national soul, the pulse of the 
mighty national heart. Who is willing to live in national 
disgrace, and to be ashamed when he is abroad among the 
nations, to have it known that he came from such a place, or 
that he is the citizen of such a land ? Wlio of any country, 
though it be an Icelander, or a Kamtschatkan, but takes an 
honest and an honorable pride in the land that gave him 
birth ? And that land, though it be the frozen north, or the 
desert south, who does not glory, if he can call it his own, 
his native land, in its being kept untarnished in fame ? Such 
is the feeling of all men, savage and civihzed. 

But men misjudge. They do not see what true national 
honor is. They think it is territory, or wealth, or armies, or 
success in war or diplomacy, or some other factitious thing. 
But it is a great error. The noble and honorable nations of 
antiquity, as they now stand in the eyes of the world, were 
the just and upright and pacific nations. Their glitter and 
gold have all perished. But all that they did of the True, 
and Good, and Just, and Beautiful, now lives in eternal 
remembrance on the breathing canvas, and the imperishable 
marble, in song and never-dying history. The gross and 
sensual, and rich and extended empires of the old world have 
rotted out of the record of mankind, for they did little worth 
preserving. While a magnanimous act in the humblest town 
or city has survived, and is borne on the wings of fame all 
over the earth. There is a retribution in history. 

Much is said of national honor. But what is highly 
esteemed among men is abomination with God. If we would 
seek the true honor of our own country, we shall use our 
influence to carry out the principles and ideas of Free Insti- 

lo* 



174 POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR AT HOME. 

tutions to their full extent. We shall frown upon all attempts 
to cast down those glorious principles and ideas to the base 
and vulgar glory of ages of barbarism. It is no honor to us 
that we have three millions of slaves. It is no honor to us 
that we, the stronger republic, and one that can afford to be 
generous, should make war upon the weaker one. It is no 
honor to us to grasp the whole continent, when we find it a 
sufficient work to take care of what we have. But so far as 
we do what is just, pay our own debts, live in peace with our 
neighbors, give the poor Indian and African their due, carry 
forward education and morality, and enterprise in every direc- 
tion, and at once civilize and Christianize our vast popula- 
tion, we are on the high road to honor, and shall Hve on the 
brightest pages of history. So may it be, should be the 
prayer of every true American. 

But the whole war-system of the civilized countries is 
false and dishonorable. War is for savages, not for citizens, 
gentlemen, and Christians. Its direct effect, as far as it goes, 
is to carry back civilization some degrees towards barbarism. 
It is the animal in man, triumphing over the human. It is 
an appeal to force, not to right. It is poor policy, as well as 
bad morality. It generally loses in the end more than it 
gains. It may gain notoriety, but it destroys true renown. 
It may conquer new lands, but it wrecks character. It is 
antagonistical to Christianity, and therefore it must be false 
and wrong, and in the end evil, and evil continually. 

We have not been able to see, thus far, much difference 
between this and most other wars. It probably had as 
much cause to excuse its origin, it has been as well con- 
ducted, it has had as good a close, as most other wars. We 
believe it is unjust, that it had no adequate reason to justify 
it. We believe it is a disgrace, and not an honor, to the 
American name. We believe that its victories are not glo- 
ries, and that its results will not be blessings. We know 
that the conscience of the civilized world, and the sympathy 



POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR AT HOME. 175 

of Christendom, are against us, as they always are against 
the powerful in their contests with the weak. And it needs 
no prophet's eye to read, in the future, the impartial con- 
demnation of history. There we shall be defeated, without 
doubt and without help, however successful we may be in 
blowing up Mexican cities and dispersing Mexican armies. 

But this war is only a small part of a great system, — 
the war-system of nations ; and that system is unjust, inglo- 
rious, murderous. What we would scourge most severely, 
if we could wield the pen of a Juvenal or a Pope, would be 
this whole childish, ridiculous, if it were not much more, 
this wrong and inhuman method, of settling national dis- 
putes. Our Mexican War is as good, and as bad, as the 
war of France against the Algerines, — that of the Russians 
against the Circassians, — and that of the Enghsh against 
the Sikhs. And, if we speak of dismemberment, Poland 
now stands not alone. 

What national honor, in fine, could be gained in a contest, 
which, before it broke out, Mr. Thompson, our Minister to 
jVEexico, said, in his '' Recollections,"* would be inadequately 
expressed by an encounter between " a feeble woman and 
a strong man armed ! " 

The political evils of national debt, loss of life, and acts 
of barbarism, have already been descanted upon at length. 
We proceed to consider some other mischiefs, that may be 
classed under the head of " political." 

The recent war with Mexico has produced a kind of civil 
warfare in our own borders. It has been a very embittered 
topic of debate and division. It has been a firebrand of con- 
tention and anger, on the floor of Congress. The press has 
distilled gall, when the subject has been introduced. And, 
worse than all, it has created strong sectional alienations, 
exasperated all the local strifes of the country, and added 

* Recollection?, p. 245. 



176 POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR AT HOME. 

new venom to politics. It has brought up the quection of 
slavery, and not brought it up in such a way that we can 
hope for a happy issue from it. 

Words are not, it is true, bullets, and the pen, however 
sharp, does not prick like the bayonet ; but the earnest lover 
,of his country will deprecate the occasions of violent party, 
and especially sectional conflicts, if they can be avoided 
without the sacrifice of principle. A quarrelsome nation is 
but a more extended quarrelsome family. And as, in do- 
mestic life, we think it wise to shun petty bickerings, so in 
national life, great animosities and the causes that fan them 
up, should be carefully avoided. There will be more or less 
friction in the social, as in mechanical machinery ; but, in 
both instances, it is well to reduce it as much as possible. 
"Fraternity" is one of the great words of a true national 
motto; and no "root of bitterness" should be lightly suf- 
fered to spring up and trouble us. The spirit of war is 
essentially a spirit of discord at home, as well as abroad. It 
tends to shake, everywhere, the pillars of confidence, good 
will, and a good understanding between citizens, if they be 
on opposite sides of party lines. 

The Mexican War will be a standing topic of crimination 
and recrimination, through the present generation, if not 
during a longer time. It has sown our soil with dragons' 
teeth, and they will spring up armed men. It has started 
questions of free territory, slavery, boundaries, pensions, 
private claims, and new schemes of conquest and annexa- 
tion, that will embroil the next fifty years, both in our pub- 
lic councils, and among the people and the press. These are 
no contemptible evils, when we remember that union is the 
strength of a republic, and peace and love the first duties of 
the Christian code. 

So far especially as the Mexican conquests have banded 
North and South against each other, and, by widening our 
domains, weakened the joints of our body politic, they are 



POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR AT HOME. 177 

greatly to be deprecated. In this aspect, they war against 
the glorious sisterhood of the States, and pave the way for 
no remote dismemberment. By introducing into the rights 
and privileges of American citizens a horde of "outside 
barbarians," the mongrel races of New Mexico and Califor- 
nia, they have cheapened the American birthright, and loos- 
ened the very corner-stone in our fabric of Federal Free- 
dom. If the spirit, of wliich this invasion is the first-fruits, 
be not speedily and effectually discountenanced, the day 
cannot be far distant when a rupture will take place be- 
tween the widely-separated States, and clashing interests of 
different sections of our beloved republic, that will prove 
incurable. War, in its Anglo-Saxon derivation, means 
" beware ; '* and well would it be for us, as a people, if the 
catastrophe which has befallen us should put us on our guard 
against evils yet to come, and, above all, the final dissolution 
of the American Union. 

Again ; the liberties of mankind, as all history teaches, 
are so liable to be stolen away from the unwary many by 
the crafty few, that we can never be too watchful of their 
unimpaired preservation. The forms, too, of freedom may 
survive, when the spirit has ebbed away. A republic, like 
a church, may have a name to live, when it is dead. "WTiat, 
then, needs our perpetual vigilance, as citizens of a free 
land, is, that the great ideas, out of which our State and 
national constitutions were born, may be maintained, in their 
original power, in the minds of the people. There is a 
meaning in going back to the fathers of the Revolution ; for 
we are then in reality going forward in the prospective 
career which they marked out, — in that heroic, and, so to 
say, inspired age of the nation. But, as the love of money, 
ambition, ease, familiarity with free institutions breeding 
contempt, corruption in high places, and the power of dema- 
gogues, wax stronger, and mould to bad uses large and un- 
suspecting parties, it is imperatively necessary to quaff anew 



178 POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR AT HOME. 

of the spirit of 76; and, if we do not servilely copy what 
the sages and heroes of that period did, yet it is wise to 
consider Avhat, under the influence of such a life-giving, 
and comparatively disinterested spirit of freedom, as then 
burned in their bosoms, they would now do, were they in 
our places. 

War is, in itself, a temporary despotism. Slavery is a 
tremendous evil ; but he who hates slavery should just as 
cordially hate war, for Avar gave birth to slavery. The cap- 
tives of war are the victims of slavery. The African slave- 
trade feeds on war. But, more than that, war enslaves 
those that are engaged in it. Soldiers are slaves. The infe- 
rior officers are all slaves to the superior; and the whole 
army, or fleet, are subject to the most absolute, and often 
tyrannical despotism of one man, the commanding general. 
They have no wills, or consciences, or hearts of their own. 
If they are ordered to kill the widow's only cow and burn 
her cottage, they must march up and do it, without flinching. 
He who undertakes to have a private opmion of his own in 
an army, will soon find out liis mistake, by means of cash- 
iering or the cat-o'-nine-tails. The defender of war is 
obliged, from the necessity of the case, to defend this abso- 
lutism ; for otherwise there could be no marching or fighting 
to any efficient purpose. The better slaves, the better sol- 
diers. The more total, and unquestioning, and mechanical 
the obedience, the more fit and successful is the army for 
accomplishing its objects. Can that be a good institution 
that makes men into machines, that enthrones another's will, 
however wicked or arbitrary, over the wills, consciences, rea- 
son, and every " faculty divine," of thousands and tens of 
thousands of responsible and immortal beings ? 

"We have already recorded the words of Madison, in which 
he warns his countrymen to beware of the despotic influence 
of war. It was timely advice. We Avould single out, 
indeed, no one man, or class of men, as aspiring to destroy 



POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR ABROAD. 179 

the liberties of their fatherland. But we cannot avoid see- 
ing that every war furnishes an occasion for a daring march 
of executive power upon the other functions of government; 
for the creation of a multitude of offices, dependent upon 
the gift of one man, or a few men ; for the elevation of 
military talents over those of the civilian ; for the increase 
of a standing army, always a supple tool of arbitrary power ; 
for the erection of military governments over the conquered 
countries ; and for the introduction of officers into every 
branch of the government, from the highest to the lowest, 
whose sole or chief distinction is prowess in arms, and who 
would naturally make military maxims the basis of their 
official administration. It was when the Pretorian Guards 
of Rome bore the emperor into office by their despotic will, 
that the mistress of nations began to dechne. And when, in 
any nation, the glorious gifts of Christian statesmanship, and 
ripe experience, and large converse among men, and a hfe- 
time of civil services to one's country and the world, are 
postponed and set aside for "the conquering hero," the 
Genius of rational, heaven-descended Liberty is already 
meditating her departure to some more congenial clime. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

POLITICAL EVILS OF THE VTAR ABROAD. 

" Freedom is fighting her battles in the world, with sufficient odds 
against her. Let us not give new chances to her foes." — Channing. 

The Mexican War has done incalculable harm to the 
cause of liberty, throughout our country and the world. 



180 POLITICAL EYILS OF THE WAR ABROAD, 

This central idea of our government, institutions, and des- 
tiny, has been foully disowned. We had already done great 
discredit to our good name, by our violations of Indian 
treaties, our slavery, and our repudiation of State debts. 
But this attack on weak neigbbors, to steal away their lands, 
is capping the climax of wrong and dishonor. See, says the 
monarchist, the aristocrat, your boasted government of the 
people can do as wicked and unjust things, as were ever per- 
petrated by the kings and kaisers of the old world. It is 
the same game of ambition, only it is played by different 
hands. It is the ancient spirit in a new form. The reality 
is the same, sugar it over with fair names as much as you 
please. War is war, and tyranny is tyranny, and slavery 
is slavery, — whether in the United States, or Rome, or 
England. 

The example we have thus set before the world is a most 
noxious one. The stigma we have brought upon the name 
of Liberty will not soon be wiped out. We have caused the 
hearts of pacific lovers of freedom everywhere to sink within 
them, at the spectacle of a government of the people forget- 
ting the rights and interests of humanity, and waging, on the 
ground of the old-world notions of retaliation, force, glory, 
security, and indemnity, a war of invasion, conquest, and ter- 
rible barbarity. 

But when, to all these considerations of the unfavorable 
bearing of the Mexican war on the interests of freedom at 
home and abroad, we add that it was begun, continued, and 
ended, to subserve the extension of slavery and the slave 
power, we have revealed its full enormity. That all who 
were engaged in the contest, as counsellors or actors, on the 
American side, were actuated by this motive, would be 
more than any wise man would assert. But we regard our- 
selves as holding two impregnable and historical positions, 
when we maintain, that had it not been for the institution 
of slavery, Texas never would have been conquered and an- 



POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR ABROAD. 181 

nexed ; and that had it not been for the annexation of Tex- 
as, and the desire for more Mexican soil, not a drop of hu- 
man blood would have been shed, nor would such endeared 
names as " beautiful sight," " true cross," " holj cross," " sa- 
crament," ever have been raised from their innocent obscu- 
rity to become the dark and terrible names of battles be- 
tween two Christian nations. We have already adduced, in 
the third chapter of this essay, documentary evidence from 
both the Executive and Legislative Departments of the 
United States, to substantiate these positions. We need not 
recapitulate that testimony. Suffice it to say, that since that 
chapter was written, the most ample declarations have been 
published by some, who were prominent in the measure of 
annexation, that they acted either under the influence of a 
panic got up for the occasion, that Texas was about to throw 
herself into the arms of some foreign power, or that pledges 
were given to insure their votes, which were not afterwards 
fulfilled. We hesitate not to say on these and previous tes- 
timonies, that the Texas plot was one of the darkest con- 
spiracies that history anywhere records, against hmnan lib- 
erty ; and that the plot not only succeeded perfectly, but 
that it drew after it, as an almost necessary consequence to 
the same rapacious scheme, a war of conquest, still further 
to extend this wicked and unnatural, and naturally injurious 
relation of absolute power on one hand, and helpless, hope- 
less servitude on the other, over vast regions of God's earth, 
among unborn millions of his children, and down through 
too patient years of wrong and suffering. What the result 
will be for the new territories thus acquired, it would be 
presumptuous to predict ; we can only entertain the strong 
hope that the Proviso of Freedom, under whatever name of 
man it may be called, will be extended like the wings of a 
guardian angel over this immense wilderness of nature. 
But the feeling and the fear of bringing Mexican land, 
purged of slavery and the slave-trade, under the dominion 

16 



182 POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR ABROAD. 

of the United States, cannot, in concluding this head of the 
subject, be better expressed than in the stirring words of a 
Mexican poet writing at the beginning of the war, and of an 
American one writing duiing its progress. This lyric is by 
Jose Ho Ace de Saltillo.* 

" Hearken ! from our Northern borders 
Sounds Arista's bugle call ; 
On the banks of Rio Bravo 
Bursts the shell and ploughs the ball ! 

" Ghastly hands in Tenochtitlan 
Strike th' old Atzec battle-drum ; 
Sharp of beak and strong of talon, 
Lo ! Mexitli's eagles come ! 

" Coldly sleep our slaughtered brothers ; 
While above their hasty graves 
Sounds the hurrying hoof of rapine, 
And the robber-banner waves. 

" On they come, the mad invaders. 
Like the fire before the wind ; 
Freedom's harvest-field before them, 
Slavery's blackened waste behind I 

" From the sellers of God's image 
From the traffickers in man, 
Mother gracious, mother holy, 
Shield thy dark-browed Mexican ! 

" Hearken ! up the Rio Bravo 

Comes the negro- catcher's shout : 
Listen ! 'tis the Yankee's hammer 
Forging human fetters out ! 

■' Let the land we love be wasted, 

Black with fire and rough with graves ; 
Better far for God and Freedom 
Die at once than live as slaves ! 

* "A Mexican of some celebrity." See Montgomery's Life of Gen. 
Taylor, pp. 316, 317. 



POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR ABROAD. 183 

" We are few and they ai'e many, 

Strong in arms, and wealth, and pride; 
But the saints and holy angels, 
And man's heart are on our side. 

" Hark ! from ancient Tenochitlan, 

Sounds once more the Atzec drum ; 
Not for conquest, not for vengeance, 
But for Freedom, Faith, and Home ! " 

In the poem entitled " Yorktown," referring to the com- 
promises of the Constitution, and the perpetuation of slavery 
in the United States, Whittier breaks forth in these indig- 
nant stanzas, — 

" Oh ! fields still green and fresh in story, 
Old days of pride, old names of glory. 
Old marvels of the tongue and pen, 
Old thoughts which stirred the hearts of men ! 
Ye spared the wrong : and over all 
Behold the avenging shadow fall ! 
Your world-wide honor stained with shame, 
Your Freedom's self a hoUow name. 

" Where 's now the flag of that old war ? 
Where flow its stripes 1 Where bums its star ? 
Bear witness, Palo Alto's day. 
Dark Vale of Palms, red Monterey, 
Where Mexic Freedom, young and weak, 
Fleshes the Northern eagle's beak: 
Symbol of terror and despair. 
Of chains and slaves, go seek it there ! 

. " Laugh, Prussia, 'midst thy iron ranks ! 
Laugh, Russia, from thy Neva's banks ! 
Brave sport to see the fledgling bom 
Of Freedom, by its parents torn ! 
Safe now your Speilburg's dungeon cell, 
Safe drear Siberia's frozen hell : 
With Slavery's flag o'er both unrolled, 
What of the New World fears the Oldl" 



184 POLITICAL EVILS OP THE WAR ABROAD. 

But we have gained, still, say the war advocates, a great 
renown, and made the nations of the earth, especially poor 
Mexico, tremblingly afraid of us. This is one of the glories 
of war, and its avowed merit. But is this a manly, a 
raticMial, or a Christian mode of reasoning? Love is as 
much better than fear among nations as it is among indi- 
viduals. If we have taught the nations to dread or hate us 
for our injustice and rapacity, have we probably retarded or 
advanced the cause of freedom in the world? We have 
taught them that republics can be as ambitious as monar- 
chies, and can load their people with war-taxes as unspar- 
ingly, and squander their lives and happiness as recklessly 
and as causelessly. We have shown that the eagle has 
claws as sharp, and a beak as bloody, as the tooth of the 
lion, or the paw of the bear. Besides, the question is, whe- 
ther this reputation for military glory is what a nation 
should chiefly seek ? Whether the arts of peace are not a 
better foundation for honor than the arts of war ? And 
whether those nations or communities, — the mobs of Euro- 
pean cities, the cabinets of warlike States, the fierce, and 
brutal, and bloody men of the age, who have no just sense 
of the value of human life, and little touch of the spirit of 
Christ, — whether those are to be our judges, to whom we 
are to look for approval in our national acts? Are we 
to kill thousands for the sake of propitiating the military 
class of Europe, or any other quarter, to the opinion that 
we are after all as adroit cut-throats as they are them- 
selves ? Is such a character the one we should be emu- 
lous to gain in the infancy of our repubMc ? Is it not es- 
sentially a guilty, blood-stained glory, unbecoming a Chris- 
tian people, and quite at variance with those smooth and 
honied professions of liberty and peace which have been 
upon our lips from the beginning ? Injustice never yet 
gained sincere respect. The truth is, the nations hate and 
loathe us for this veiy war. They despise the cowardice 



POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR ABROAD. 185 

that pounced upon a weaker country, and dismembered its 
territory by force of arms. This war has gained us the good 
opinion abroad of none whose good opinion is worth possessing. 
The political effect of the war on Mexico has been bad. 
The whole attention of that country has been devoted two 
years to war. This cannot have been favorable to the work- 
ing of free institutions. The funds of the nation have been 
diverted into channels of barren expenditure, yielding no 
profitable returns. The talent, skill, power, and time of the 
Mexican people for two years have been turned away from 
all the works and processes of improvement, to the siege 
and the battle-field. Her commerce was destroyed, and her 
agriculture wasted. The manners and morals of large num- 
bers of her people were infected by the pernicious contagion 
of camp vices and habits. Her national pride and self- 
respect have received a severe blow, and prepared her to 
strive with less "might and main" to perfect republican 
forms of government, or repel future invasions. She has 
lost between one-third and one-half of her territory. The 
spirit of revolution, always rampant in her Capital and pro- 
vinces, has received a new impetus in the generally disor- 
dered state of the country. Her military leaders will gather 
new materials for civil contests in the measures that the war 
has developed, and new instruments to carry them on in the 
hordes of disbanded soldiers that are now thrown out of em- 
ployment, and are ready to join in any scheme of violence 
and plunder. So wide have been these injurious influences 
upon the political weal of Mexico, that it has been said by 
competent authority on the spot, that "the whole male 
population of Mexico appears to be fast relapsing into a 
state of brigandage." The system of guerilla warfare must 
have done much to demoralize the peasantry, and to infuse 
into the remotest sections of the country the deadly virus of 
war-habits, vices, cruelty, and abandonment of the regular 
occupations of industry and honesty. 
16* 



186 POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR ABROAD. 

Not the least of the evils of the war will be an increased 
bitterness and hostility in Mexico against the United States 
and against free institutions. This was the result of the 
Texas difficulties, according to Mr. Thompson, in his Recol- 
lections of Mexico. " The feeling of all Mexicans towards 
us, until the revolution in Texas, was one of unmixed admi- 
ration ; and it is our high position amongst the nations, and 
makes our mission all the more responsible, that every people 
struggling to be free, regard us with the same feelings, — 
we are indeed the ' looking-glass in which they dress them- 
selves.' As a philanthropist, I have deeply deplored the 
effects of the annexation of Texas upon the feelings of the 
people of all classes in Mexico, towards this country, as 
diminishing their devotion to repubUcan institutions; this 
should not be so, but it will be." 

Much indeed has been said of the political benefits accru- 
ing to Mexico from this conquest. But were these benefits 
commended to us as a people, we should not be long probably 
in testifying our repugnance to the mission of foreign proga- 
gandists. We should altogether prefer to manage our own 
affairs in our own way ; and we should very much question 
the right of any nation, however wise, or good, or powerful, 
to rivet their measures upon us by force, slice off hundreds 
of thousands of square miles of our national territory, kill 
thousands of our citizens, destroy millions of our property, 
and ere the seal was hardly cold on the instrument of amity 
and peace, to plot new schemes of invasion, or allow them 
to be plotted. So imperfectly can we arrive at a true knowl- 
edge of the internal state of affairs in that unhappy, dis- 
tracted country, that only on the general ground indicated 
in these brief words do we come to the conclusion, that, 
though Providence, in its wise chemistry, may elaborate, 
even out of this war and its miseries, good to the suffering 
republic, yet we have no commission or license, as a nation, 
any more than individuals, to " do evil that good may come." 



THE NEW TERRITORIES. IW 

Evil is evil, and sin is sin, and the consequences cannot alter 
the moral complexion of an act. No doubt, as Nature heals 
on her beautiful face the scars of the torn battle-plain, wipes 
away with her tears, shed from heaven, the stains of blood, 
and even clothes herself with a greener vesture and more 
blooming flowers than before ; so the infinite Providence, in 
which all worlds and all beings are embosomed, with a Hke 
hopefulness and soothing efficacy of time, may work out of 
the bitter woes of war a greater good than man thought of; 
but God's goodness, instead of excusing our wickedness, only 
makes it appear all the more guilty and shocking. Mexico 
may not fall. The blow she has received may rouse her 
latent energies of self-improvement. But if the period 
should ever arrive when the largest republic on earth, next 
to our own, and the most hopeful and consistent one, is blot- 
ted out of the record of nations and becomes the Poland of 
the West, we shall stand condemned in the eyes of heaven 
and our own. as the authors of so tremendous a catastrophe. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE NEW TERRITORIES. 

" And what, in principle, is war ? It is the duel between nations^ dif- 
fering in no respect from the duel between individuals, except that the 
successful combatant is allowed to carry off as spoil the effects of his 
vanquished antagonist." — Bishop Potter. 

The acquisition of the territories of New Mexico and 
California is regarded by many as a sufficient compensation 
for all the losses and evils of the war, and a summary answer 



188 THE NEW TERRITORIES. 

to all objectors. The ports on the Pacific, the immense 
extent of country, and above all the astonishing mineral 
wealth are adduced as reasons to satisfy us that it was well 
the war was waged ; as if these good tilings were some fair 
exchange ; as if the question had been put to us, what shall 
it profit the nation, if it gain the whole world, and lose its 
own soul of faith and freedom; and we had seemed to 
answer, it shall profit us richly, if we can gain San Fran- 
cisco, the Pacific port, the Sacramento, river of gold, and a 
boundless extent of new lands. 

There are, however, important drawbacks to the value of 
our possessions, and to the satisfaction with which an honest 
man can speak of them. 

There is, in the first place, the way in which they were 
acquired, — by force, by conquest, by might, and not by 
right. As early as June 24, 1845, Commodore Sloat re- 
ceived secret and confidential orders from the Navy Depart- 
ment, to employ his squadron in the Pacific in warlike 
operations, seizing and occupying San Francisco, and other 
Mexican ports, as soon as he had ascertained with certainty 
the existence of war between Mexico and the United States, 
Seven ships of war and between 2000 and 3000 men and 
officers afforded him ample power to carry into execution 
his orders. Having lieard rumors of the battles on the E,io 
Grande, he seized, July 7, 1846, Monterey, Upper California, 
without resistance, and issued a proclamation,* in which he 
annexed the country pemianently to the American Union, 
saying that " henceforward California will be a portion of 
the United States," and in wliicli he assured the people, that 
" the same protection would be extended to them as to any 
other State in the Union ; " thus virtually excluding the idea 
of any changes in the government, which a treaty of peace, 
or the action of Congress might produce. In the language 

* 30th Con^. 2d Session, Ho. of Rep. Ex. Doc. No. 1, p. 1010. 



THE NEW TERRITORIES. 189 

of Commodore Stockton, " the intelligence of the commence- 
ment of hostilities between the two nations, although it had 
passed through Mexico, had reached Commodore Sloat in 
advance of the Mexican authorities. When he first made 
his hostile demonstrations, therefore, the enemy, ignorant of 
the existence of the war, had regarded his acts as an unwar- 
rantable exercise of power by the United States, and the 
most lively indignation and bitter resentment filled the coun- 
try." The motives under which the conqueror acted are 
portrayed in the following extract from a letter to Comman- 
der Montgomerj', dated Monterey, July 6, 1846,* " since I 
wrote you last evening, I have determined to hoist the flag 
of the United States at this place to-morrow, as I would prefer 
being sacrificed for doing too much than too little." The dim- 
ger to which he was exposed, of being sacrificed for doing 
too little, was w^ell set forth in a letter from Mr. Bancroft, 
Secretary of the Navy, which, after chiding him for remain- 
ing quiet from June 6th, when he heard of the affairs on the 
Eio Grande, till July 7th, when he captured Monterey, used 
this tone ; f " but your anxiety not to do wrong has led you 
into a most unfortunate and unwarranted inactivity." Would 
it not often be better for our country, and for all countries, 
if public officers had more of that "anxiety not to do 
wrong ? " 

But the part enacted by Fremont in California sufficiently 
indicated that he was there, and that he took part in the 
revolutionary and warlike movements, not without high 
authority implied, though not perhaps distinctly expressed. 
He left St. Louis in June, 1845, on a topographical and 
scientific survey of Oregon and California, with a command 
of sixty-two men and two hundred horses. The Oregon 
boundary was in dispute, but the California boundary was 

* 30th Cong. 1st Session, Senate. Rep. Com. No. 75, p. 73. 
t 30th Cong. 1st Session, Senate. Rep. Com. No. 75, p. 71. Aho, 
p. 13. 



190 THE NEW TERRITORIES. 

clearly defined. And no armed party of men from the 
United States had any more right to be travelling in, and 
surveying that country, than sixty armed Mexicans to enter 
Florida and travel through it on a topographical and scien- 
tific survey. There was an ulterior motive besides science. 
It was remarkable too that several months had been devoted 
to California, which belonged to Mexico, and not a day to 
Oregon, which did belong to the United States. What Fre- 
mont's instructions were when he was sent out, are secrets 
buried in the archives of the Grovernment. But the facts 
are indisputable. Fremont was there, ready for any move- 
ment. He naturally awakened the suspicions of the Cali- 
fomian authorities. Gen. Castro, military commander of 
California, ordered him to leave the country. But he took 
an intrenched position and avowed his intention, if attacked, 
to die in defence of the flag of his country, though he had 
dishonored that flag by confessedly planting it on the foreign 
soil of Mexico. He retired however to the north, into Ore- 
gon, before the forces of Castro, and was there reached by 
an oflicer, Lieut. Gillespie, the bearer of important despatches 
from the United States through Mexico, which he had com- 
mitted to memory, that chance might not betray them to the 
Mexican government. On the 10th of May, 1846, the par- 
ties met. The nature of the message will best be told 
in Fremont's own language : " He brought me a letter of 
introduction from the Secretary of State, (Mr. Buchanan,) 
and letters and papers from Senator Benton and his family. 
The letter from the Secretary imported nothing beyond the 
introduction, and was directed to me in my private or citizen 
capacity. The outside envelop of a packet from Senator 
Benton was directed in the same way, and one of the letters 
from him, while apparently of mere friendship and family 
details, contained passages enigmatical and obscure, but which 
I studied out, and made the meaning to be that I was required 
by the Government to find out any foreign schemes in rela- 



THE NEW TERRITORIES. l^f 

tion to the Califomias, and to counteract them." * He fur- 
ther says, " the letter from Senator Benton had a decided 
influence on my next movement." Lieut. Gillespie also 
testified essentially to the same statement respecting his 
instructions from the home government. Capt. Owens also 
declared before the committee on " California claims," that 
he did not think the revolution against the government would 
have taken place, or the people been united without the aid 
and protection of Captain Fremont. They had not confi- 
dence enough in their strength to undertake the war without 
support. Captain Fremont's party was strong and well armed, 
and went together like one man. Another witness, Loker, 
testified, " then commenced the revolution." f 

Turning back from Oregon into " the unsettled parts of 
the Sacramento," and hearing rumors of warlike movements 
by Gen. Castro, Fremont put himself, June 10th, at the head 
of the American settlers at their earnest request, joining 
them "with his party, and (what they deemed of great 
moment) his name as an American officer." The first act 
of this clandestine war was the seizure of some horses of 
Gen. Castro. The town of Sonoma was captured, and on 
July 5th, the Californians declared their independence, and 
adopted the figure of the grizzly bear as their standard. Soon 
afterwards, how^ever, Fremont and Stockton united their 
forces under the flag of the United States, and the republic 
of California had an even shorter existence than the republic 
of Texas. 

Thus by violence and conquest, hatched, abetted and con- 
summated before it was distinctly known that any declared 
w^ar existed, was the territory belonging to Mexico torn 
away, and proclaimed to be an absolute and perpetual pos- 
session of the United States. Is it not within the bounds of 
imagination to conceive, that had the English, instead of the 

^ 30th Cong. 1st Session, Senate. Ex. Doc. No. 33, pp. 373, 374. 
t 30th Cong. 1st Session, Senate. Rep. Com. No. 75, pp. 38, 39. 



192 THE NEW TERRITORIES. 

Mexican, flag been flying over Monterey and San Francisco, 
these officers would have paused before they pulled it down. 

This insolence of power was still further illustrated by 
the designation which Stockton and other officers gave to 
those who rose and resisted their violent acts, calling them 
rebels and insurgents^* when they were themselves confes- 
sedly acting without what are called the rights of war ; f 
Fremont fighting, as he acknowledged, on his own hook, J 
and Stockton on only implied powers from his government. 

One word is due to New Mexico, after which other topics 
relating to the new territories acquired, will be discussed. 
The conquest of this Mexican province was effected by Gen. 
Kearney with a command despatched for that purpose. But 
he overstepped the line of authority, as did the officers in 
California, by erecting New Mexico into a territory of the 
United States before peace was made, and by absolving the 
inhabitants from their allegiance, threatening them with 
death, if they took up arms, § enacting laws, in some in- 

^ Cutts' Conquest of California, pp. 129, 130, 133. 157, 161, 163. 

t The justification of Mexican cruelties towards the prisoners taken 
in the Texan war, was that they were rebels, traitors to the govern- 
ment, and therefore deserved to be imprisoned or executed. 28th 
Cong. 1st Session, Senate, 341, p. 72. 

t "In June of the year 1846, being then a brevet captain of topo- 
graphical engineers in the service of the United States, and employed 
as such in California, he engaged in military operations with the people 
of the country for the establishment of the independence of California, 
before the existence of war between the United States and Mexico was 
known, and was successful in said undertaking," etc. 30th Cong. 1st 
Session, Senate. Rep. Com. No. 75, p. 1. "I informed him, that I had 
acted solely on my own responsibility, and without any authority from 
the government to justify hostilities." p. 13. 

§ Cutts' Conquest of California, p. 46, 51, 57, 58. Perhaps the best 
parallel to the ancient anecdote of Alexander and the Pirate is found 
in the following interview between Gen. Kearney and an Indian war- 
rior: "Just as we were leaving camp to-day, an old Apache chief came 
in and haranaucd the jrcnenxl thus : ' You have taken Santa Fe, let us 



THE NEW TERRITORIES. 1^8 

Stances cruel and unnatural, and forcing Mexicans against 
their will to become Americans. After the conquest, Texas 
claimed New Mexico as rightfully belonging to her, and 
endeavored to extend over it her jurisdiction and her system 
of slavery. What will be the result remains yet to be seen. 
She is prohibited by the joint resolution of annexation from 
extending slavery farther north than 36° 30', but her laws 
make no such scrupulous limits to the dominions of oppres- 
sion. 

The vast domains acquired from Mexico, partly under 
pretence of giving them a better government and free insti- 
tutions, have been more than a year since the treaty of peace 
was declared, deprived of any but a fluctuating military gov- 
ernment, without efficiency or consistency, and the prospect 
now is that this state of things will exist for some time 
longer. The determination to reestabhsh slavery over lands 
that have been redeemed and emancipated from its curse, 
may still farther postpone the erection of suitable territorial 
governments. Meantime, slaves have been carried into these 
new regions, the buying and selling of human beings has 
commenced, and the language of the slave press is, " Here 
is a vast field opened to the wealth and labor of the South, 
which if improved, promises a rich harvest. Slave labor 
can be employed more profitably in mining in California and 
New Mexico, than it possibly can be in any portion of the 
United States. Thus an extensive domain will be created 
for slave labor, the surplus of which is now crushing the 
Southern states." * 

Parts of Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and the whole 

go on and take Chihuahua and Sonora ; we will go with you. You 
Jiglit for the soil, ive Jiyht for plunder; so we will agree perfcctlt/. These 
people are bad Christians ; let us give them a good thrashing," etc. 
Capt. Johnston's Journal, 30th Cong. 1st Session, Ho. of Rep. Ex. Doc. 
No. 41, p. 580. 

* The Nashville Union, 1849. 

17 



194 THE NEW TERRITORIES. 

of New Mexico and Upper California, have all been added 
by the late war and the treaty succeeding it, to the United 
States. How much this measure may have done to slake the 
natural thirst for territory may be considered, when it is 
kown, that, according to the statistics furnished Congress in 
1848 by the War Department, New Meidco contains 77,387 
square miles, and California 448,691 square miles ; or total 
526,078 square miles, or 366,589,920 acres. Besides this 
boundless surface, that would make more than eleven states as 
large as New York, Texas has gained additions to her before 
immense territory, so that she possesses now 325,520 square 
miles, or 208,322,800 square acres, or a region that would 
make, in all, more than seven States as large as New York ; 
and if united with New Mexico and California, would con- 
stitute a territory carved out of Mexico more than eighteen 
times as large as the Empire State, or more than one hundred 
and nine times as large as Massachusetts ; a tract of country 
about as large as England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Spain, 
Portugal, Italy, and Germany combined ! 

But vast as these domains of New Mexico and California are, 
the testimony of many travellers is, that they are not highly 
valuable either for agricultural, commercial or manufacturing 
purposes. 

Col. Hardin, who was killed at the Battle of Buena Vista, 
says, " irrigation is necessary to insure all the crops in Mexi- 
co." " Nothing strikes an American eye sooner, or more 
strongly, than the denuded landscape every where presented 
to his view in Northern Mexico." 

Major Gaines, another officer, says, "The country from 
the Nueces to the Rio Grande is poor, sterile, sandy, and 
barren, — with not a single tree of any size or value, on our 
whole route." Yet it was this disputed tract of desert that 
led to the first conflict of arms. He adds, " I have no hesi- 
tation in saying that I would not hazard the life of one valu- 
able and useful man for every foot of land between San Pa- 



THE NEW TERRITORIES. 195 

tricio (or the Nueces) and the valley of the Rio Grande. 
The country is not now and never can be of the slightest 
value." 

We have already quoted Hon. C. J. Ingersoll, as calling it 
" a stupendous desert." 

Ruxton, an English traveller, says of New Mexico, " the 
general character of the department is extreme aridity of 
soil, and the consequent deficiency of water, which must 
ever prevent its being thickly settled. The valley of the 
Del Norte is fertile, but of limited extent, and other portions 
of the province are utterly valueless in an agricultural point 
of view, and their metallic wealth is greatly exaggerated." 

Lieut. Peck, of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, 
says, " the boundaries of the territory (New Mexico) have 
never been very exactly defined, as a great share of the line 
lies over desert countries, where very little importance can 
attach to any exact location." " Many minerals, as iron, cop- 
per and lead occur in the mountains ; but situated at the dis- 
tance they are from the markets of the world, they will hardly 
be wrought." 

Mr. Farnham calls the east part of California, " a howling 
desolation." 

Of another portion of California, more to the west. Col. 
Emory of the U. S. A. says, " the land in the narrow valleys 
is good, but high, surrounded every where by barren moun- 
tains ; and where the land is good, the seasons are too dry 
for men to attempt cultivation without facihties of irrigation." 
Speaking of all the northern states of Mexico, he says, " in 
no part of tliis vast tract can the rains from heaven be relied 
upon to any extent for the cultivation of the soil. The earth 
is destitute of trees, and in great part also of any vegetation 
whatever." 

Captain Wilkes, commander of the Exploring Expedition, 
gives no very sanguine views either of the agricultural or 
commercial prospects of California, denies the alleged supe- 



196 THE NEW TERRITORIES. 

rior excellence of San Francisco, as a great Pacific port, and 
says, " although I am not disposed to question its extent and 
safety, yet I think there are many considerations which show 
that it is not so well adapted for the purposes of trade, or 
facilities for promoting it, as is generally believed." 

The testimony^ of some of these and other travellers is, 
that the intellectual and moral aspects of the people are of a 
kin with the desert character of the soil ; that ignorance, 
licentiousness, idleness, intemperance, and every savage and 
every civilized vice, have a rank growth among the heteroge- 
neous population. Ruxton represents the whole people as 
bitterly opposed to the United States, in proof of which fact, 
so far as New Mexico is concerned, he adduces the insurrec- 
tion in which Gov. Bent, and his followers were cruelly mur- 
dered. We have made a poor bargain to wage an expensive 
and sanguinary war to attach such a country to our States, 
and mix such elements of ignorance, vice, and discord with 
republican blood. Dl especially has been the annexation, 
when in addition to the war we paid some $20,000,000 for it 
to Mexico, though as an act, we rejoice that it was done, if 
the land were to be taken, on the score of its justice. 

We may then class this territory among the political evils 
resulting from the Mexican war. We had more land before 
than we could settle and till for years to come. We had 
room enough and to spare. The new territories have intro- 
duced new topics of dispute. They will require a large 
standing army for their protection from the Indians, and 
others.* They expose our boundaries to perpetual inroads. 

* The eleventh article of the Treaty with Mexico obligates the Uni- 
ted States to prevent the incursions of the Indians from New Mexico, 
and California into the adjoining provinces of Mexico, if necessary, by 
force of arms. But most cruel and devastating wars have been waged 
in 1848, and 1849, by the Indians both within our own and the lim- 
its of Mexico, against the provinces lying on the Rio Grande ; and on 
the other hand the local Mexican authorities, as a desperate measure, 
have offered Texan troops 50 dollars a head for every Indian killed, 
as if they were so many wild beasts ! 



THE NEW TERRITORIES. Jt7 

They are not in themselves generally very valuable, except 
in certain narrow tracts, that minister to the " auri sacra; 
fames" the accursed hunger for gold. TVe have compelled 
many thousands of people in those regions to come under our 
government, which is far from practising on the doctrine of 
civil and religious liberty, and basing government on the 
consent of the governed. We had established military in- 
stitutions over these countries, and dissolved the allegiance 
of the inhabitants to Mexico, and annexed them to the United 
States, before a treaty of peace, the only proper tribunal, had 
decided where they should belong. We have inflicted a 
cureless wound upon the self-respect of Mexico, by dismem- 
bering with a violent hand her provinces, and destroying the 
integrity of the national domains. We have made an im- 
placable enemy where we needed a fast friend. And so far 
as we have unjustly, by might and not by right, acquired pos- 
session of parts of Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and all 
of New Mexico and Upper California, we must sooner or la- 
ter suffer the most condign punishment for the gigantic 
wrong. As surely as there is a God reigning in heaven, or 
a Providence taking note of human conduct, the day cannot 
be far remote, when we shall be overtaken by the penalty of 
the law we have broken. Yes, our punishment has already 
begun. The ministers of Infinite Justice are upon us. Eve- 
ry interest of our beloved country, social, pecuniary, political, 
domestic, and moral has felt the shock of this war. The 
eagle eye of Liberty has drooped in sadness at the triumphs 
of oppression. And the Religion, whose interdict is, " Thou 
shalt not covet any thing that is thy neighbors," veils her 
holy face in abhorrence at the apostasy of her professed 
children. 

But finally, it is alleged that the new possessions are rich 
in the precious metals. Granted. Let every hill be a 
Potosi, and every stream a Pactolus. Let millions of gold 
and silver flow into the coffers of our republic from the 



198 THE NEW TERRITORIES. 

El Dorado of the Pacific. But is it a wise prayer to pray 
that our country should be exposed to such a temptation ? that 
our countrymen should be drawn still deeper into the passion 
for money ? These lands we have seen were as much forced 
from Mexico against her will, as the robber's booty is ex- 
torted from the helpless traveller by arms and threats. 

"We beat, we threatened, we coaxed Mexico to do what 
was against her wishes and interests. Can such treasures, 
thus procured, carry a blessing to their rapacious possessors ? 
Not if life has one lesson left to teach ; not if there is any 
truth in God's word ; not if Providence has any oversight 
over human affairs. Ill-gotten riches, — when as a general 
rule have they benefitted individuals or nations ? Are we 
not rushing into the love of money, into extravagance and 
worldliness, and unrepublican and unchristian habits with 
sufficient rapidity, but we must invoke new powers from the 
god of gold to add to their momentum ? It is quite a suffi- 
cient offset, in the judgment of not a few, to all the abominar 
tions of this war, that it has resulted in the acquisition of 
so much more material wealth ; as if that were the great 
good of life, as if that were what we most needed in this 
country, as if it were not the means of stimulating to greater 
intensity, the eager desire for gain, and making the dollar 
more than ever the deity which the multitude worship. 
Enterprise is spoken of; but had we not ali*eady a coun- 
try resting on two remote oceans ? was there any lack of 
room ? Could " the American multiplication table," as it has 
been called, replenish the land to overflowing in one or 
two centuries ? Must we cast covetous eyes on our neigh- 
bors' lands, because we are a progressive people? Read 
the history of the nations which have most abounded in 
the precious metals ; read the tales of California life thus 
far developed, and then let the true lover of his country, let 
the friend of freedom and free institutions, say whether if 
he were to select any mode of retribution for the stupen- 



THE NEW TERRITORIES. 199 

dous folly and crime of such a war, he could devise any one 
that under a fascinating disguise carries a Pandora's box 
of greater evils, than the acquisition of the gold lands of the 
Sacramento. The wounds of the sword may heal, but to 
pamper the lust for wealth is to inflict deeper wounds than 
those of the sword. The scars of the battle-field may be 
grown over by the unwearied powers of nature, and the bom- 
barded city may again be built, but the deep, eating canker 
of avarice preys upon the nation's inner life, and frets and 
poisons and consumes what is most fair and noble and 
great and good in the character of the chief republic on the 
globe. The ancient saying may be fulfilled, " He gave them 
their request, but he sent leanness into their souls." TVTio 
that reviews the violent and fraudulent means employed 
to revolutionize and conquer California, can look with honest 
complacency on the gold coin stamped with that appella- 
tion ? Who that understands in any measure what makes a 
State, what constitutes " the true grandeur of nations," but 
must lament with an unusual bitterness of sorrow, that, 
breaking away from the high promise and beautiful chann 
of our youth, and abjuring the splendid destiny of justice, 
peace and humanity, we should be content to crawl in the 
dust to scrape together a little of the perishable life of the 
world ; and to care less for obedience to those eternal prin- 
ciples on which the moral universe is built, than for certain 
plantations stocked with slaves, certain harbors on the 
Pacific, and certain valleys barren in aught but the fiery 
gold !* 

* " I am a friend to gold currency, but not to gold mining. That is a 
pursuit which the experience of nations shows to be both impoverishing 
and demoralizing to a nation. I regret that we have these mines 
in California ; but they are there, and I am for getting rid of them 
as soon as possible. Make the working as free as possible." 

* * # * * 

" I care not who digs it up. I want it dug up. I want the fever to 



200 NEW SCHEMES OF INVASION AND ANNEXATION. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

NEW SCHEMES OP INVASION AND ANNEXATION. 

" Peace is preeminently our policy. Our road to gi-eatness lies not 
over the ruins of others, but in the quiet and peaceful development of 
our immeasurably great internal resources, — in subduing our vast 
forests, perfecting the means of internal intercourse throughout our 
widely extended country, and in drawing forth its unbounded agricul- 
tural, manufacturing, mineral, and commercial resources. In this am- 
ple field, all the industry, ingenuity, enterprize, and energy of our peo- 
ple may find employment for centuries to come; and through its 
successful cultivation, we may hope to rise, not only to a state of pros- 
perity, but to that of greatness and influence over the destiny of the 
human race, higher than has ever been attained by arms by the most 
renowned nations of ancient or modern times. War, so far from ac- 
celerating, can but retard our marcli to greatness." — Calhoun. 

The alleged benefit of war as ridding society of many of 
its worst members, and drawing off the vicious and aban- 
doned to supply the decimation of its hospitals and battle- 
fields, is very problematical. For it often returns home 
more vagabonds and villains, than it enlisted. It demoral- 
izes many who were before pure, and spreads by means of 
its disbanded troops an immoral influence far and wide in 
the land. A large class of reckless, adventurous spirits are 

be over. I want the mining finished. Let all work that will. Let 
them ravage the earth — extirpate and exterminate the mines. Then 
the sober industry will begin which enriches and ennobles a nation. 
Work as hard as we may we cannot finish soon." Speech of Mr. 
Benton in the Senate, January 15, 1849. 



NEW SCHEMES OP INVASION AND ANNEXATION. 201 

educated and instigated in times of war to such a pitch of 
hardened brutality, that they learn by practice to love to 
fight. They are intoxicated with the excitements of battles, 
and when peace is declared, they have become so enamored 
of the profession of the soldier, that they long for some 
new occasion for wielding the sword ; it matters little what 
the justice or merits of the cause may be, provided it open' 
a theatre for bravery, promotion and pay. 

In accordance with these principles, we find that the sol- 
diers lately embarked in the Mexican Foray, are many of 
them anxipus to go upon another human hunt. Some of them 
remained in Mexico, and enlisted in the army there. Some 
of them returned to Vera Cruz, and offered their services to 
Yucatan in the late contest with the Indians. But stiU 
others, — and it has been darkly hinted that thousands are in- 
terested in the plan, — propose to renew under the pretext 
of " a Buffalo Hunt on the Rio Grande," the process of 
Mexican dismemberment, and erect a new republic out 
of the provinces between the Si era Madre and that River, 
at first designed to be independent, but afterwards to fall 
into the hands of the United States as ripe fruit from the 
tree. The press has been full of rumors on the subject. 
Information was requested by Congress from the President 
of the United States in relation to the expedition ; to which 
he replied that he had no official information that any citizen 
or citizens of the United States were planning to revolu- 
tionize any part of Mexico. 

But however this particular plan may be, it is sufficiently 
evident to all, that this war has given our countrymen a 
taste for national aggrandizement, that will ask for more and 
more. When the wild beast has dipped his tongue in blood, 
he rages for new prey. The strong passions that have 
been quickened by this conquest will not soon subside. 
The Sierra Madre republic may become an exploded idea, 
but not so the ambition and reckless spirit of adventure and 



202 NEW SCHEMES OF INVASION AND ANNEXATION. 

free-booting out of which it sprang. Intimations have been 
given, in quarters entitled to serious consideration, that Cuba 
would be a desirable and easy acquisition for the United 
States.* The present spirit, if long indulged, will become 

* The following document, which came out several months after the 
text was written, proves that the fears expressed there have not been 
groundless. 

PROCLAMATION. — By THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 

There is reason to believe that an armed expedition is about to be 
fitted out in the United States with the intention to invade the Island 
of Cuba, or some of the provinces of Mexico ; the best information 
which the Executive has been able to obtain, points to the Island 
of Cuba as the object of this expedition. It is the duty of this 
Government to observe the faith of treaties, and to prevent any 
aggression by our citizens upon the territories of friendly nations. 

I have therefore thought it necessary and proper to issue this pro- 
clamation to warn all citizens who shall connect themselves with an 
enterprise so grossly in violation of our treaty obligations that they 
will thereby subject themselves to the heavy penalty denounced 
against them by om- acts of Congress, and will forfeit their claim to 
the protection of their country. No such persons must expect the in- 
terference of this Government in any form in their behalf, no matter 
to what extremities they may be reduced, in consequence of their 
conduct. 

The enterprise to invade the territories of a friendly nation, set 
on foot and prosecuted within the limits of the United States, is in the 
highest degree criminal, as tending to endanger the peace and com- 
promise the honor of the nation. And therefore I expect all good 
citizens, as they regard our national reputation, as they respect our 
laws, and laws of other nations, as they value the blessing of peace and 
the welfare of their country, to discourage and prevent, by all lawful 
means, any such enterprise, and I call upon every officer of this Gov- 
ernment, civil or military, to use all efforts in his power to arrest for 
trial and punish every such offender against the laws providing for the 
performance of our sacred obligation to friendly powers. 

Given under my hand the 11th day of August, in the year our Lord 
one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine, and 74th of the inde- 
pendence of the United States. 

Z. TAYLOR. 

J. M. Clayton, Secretary of State. 



NEW SCHEMES OF INVASION AND ANNEXATION. 203 

a perfect lust of conquest, and overrun the continent, if not 
the world. The fascinating, but false idea of political pro- 
pagandism may yet wreck our fairest hopes, if it be not 
seasonably checked by an appeal to right and truth. God 
grant, in his infinite mercy, not for our sakes only, but 
for the cause of civil and religious liberty,* and free insti- 
tutions throughout the world, and the progress of humanity, 
that these political evils, which we have considered, may 
so far be counteracted and neutralized by the zeal and 
fidelity of the friends of peace, and all good men, that we 
may be spared from disunion, a profligate ambition, and a 
warlike destiny.f 

* Who can fail to recognize the wisdom of the remarks of Mr. Pol- 
lock of Pennsylvania in the House of Representatives, Jan. 26, 1847? 

" Do gentlemen desire the extension of our civil and religious privi- 
leges 1 — the pure principles of republican institutions ? The influence 
of our example will accomplish this more speedily and certainly than 
the bayonets of our soldiery, or the thunder of our cannon. You may 
conquer their teritory, but you cannot compel the people to be free ; 
you may overthrow existing governments, but you cannot establish by 
the sword a system of se//'-government. Self-government imposed by 
force upon a people would be tyranny to them." — Printed Speech, 
p. 5. 

t A bill was introduced into the Senate of the United States, May 
4, 1848, but not passed, to authorize the President '' to take temporary 
military occupation of Yucatan," now the scene of a sanguinary civil 
war between the Spanish and Indian portion of the inhabitants. A 
long debate ensued. 

Gen. Scott, senior officer in command in the American Army, ^vrote 
a letter in 1849, approving of the annexation of Canada in due time 
to the United States. 



204 MILITARY GLORT. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

MILITARY GLORT. 

" The drying up a single tear has more 

Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore." 

Byron. 

" But glory, glory !" shout the defenders of the war. 
" Much that you say of its evils may be true, but these evils 
are counterbalanced by a greater good. The war with 
Mexico has won for our army and country a European re- 
nown. None will now ask where are the United States, and 
what have they done ; Monterey and Buena Vista, Vera 
Cruz aaid Cerro Gordo have answered that question." 

The reply to this claim of glory has already been made 
in part in chapter seventeenth on the subject of true and false 
national honor. But the noxious spirit of military ambi- 
tion among individuals, and the struggle to rise by the 
arts of war instead of the arts of peace, have been increased 
by the late events ; while many care little what is for the 
honor and welfare of their country, provided they can win 
fame and place. 

The disposition to laud military heroes, and thus falsify 
the true and christian scale of intellectual and moral great- 
ness, has received a fresh impulse in the late atrocious war. 
The great men in these United States, who are they ? Are 
they the poets who are striking the finest chords of the celes- 
tial lyre, and awakening, by strains of sublimity that will never 
die, the tastes and aspirations and immortal energies of men 
of all generations ? Are they the artists who are shaping the 



MILITARY GLORY. 205 

marble into beauty, and giving life to the canvas, and thus 
refining and elevating the soul of the world ? Are they the 
orators who have plead for liberty with angelic tongue, and 
urged the infinite concerns of religion with a melting persua- 
•sion ? Are they the princely merchants who have given 
their tens of thousands of dollars to the cause of education, 
and the Avelfai'e of a hundred ages to come ? Are they the 
retired and humble scholars, who, poor and unnoted by 
the world, trim the lamp of leai-ning, decipher the meaning 
of life, unroll the map of antiquity, and extract the wisdom 
of libraries, and the history of empires gone ? No ; our 
great men are not poets, nor philosophers, nor philanthro- 
pists, nor artists, nor judges, nor jurists, nor statesmen. 
Sad day is it for humanity, when the heroes are the 
destroyers, and hosannas are sung over ruined cities and 
sinking nations, to those whose weapons are not love and 
truth, but fire and sword ! 

Every pains is taken to make the soldiers and officers thmk 
that they are the greatest and best of their day. Doubtless 
they have often acted from an ardent devoted patriotism, 
and had good intentions, though not the high standard of 
Christian duty. But we submit, that dinners and speeches, 
triumphal aiThes and temples, swords and other costly 
presents, honors and titles, and all the " pomp and circum- 
stance" wdth which the troops and their oflScers are 
welcomed home from the scene of their terrible work, are 
calculated to start the germs of a dozen future wars in 
the breasts of the rising generation, and to make our 
American youth think that nothing is so glorious as war. 
Such is the practical lesson. This is our war-education. 

This disposition to applaud the men of war, and to raise 
them to the highest offices in the State, and even to canonize 
their memories, as if they were also the brightest orna- 
ments of the church, has been conspicuously seen in two 
celebrated cases, belonging respectively to the two main 
18 



206 MILITARY GLORY. 

political parties of the country. Without uttering a word 
to stir up the embers of strife which are now going 
out, in the cold ashes of the dead, we are nevertheless 
clear in the belief that the choice of men from the battle- 
ground to guide the majestic counsels of a free Christian 
nation, is in exceedingly poor taste, bad policy, and worse 
morality. David was not allowed to build the temple, be- 
cause he was a man of war ; those who enter our consecrated 
temple of liberty ought to have pure hands and clean con- 
sciences, and hearts unspotted of their brother's blood, else 
they are not fit for that place, however well they may 
be qualified for some other station. 

One objection is, that it is to employ men in one profes- 
sion who have been serving all their lives in another, and 
very different one. It is not surely a wise man who gets his 
blacksmith to work on his teeth, or hires his house-carpenter 
to make a suit of clothes ; and yet there is really as little or 
less incongruity in these respective callings, than there is in 
appointing military men, who are liable to be despots by 
the very nature of their command, to manage the civil con- 
cerns of a republic. It is to introduce a martial spirit and 
war maxims into the administration of national affairs. It 
is to pave the way for future wars, to place camp-schooled 
and battle-trained Presidents in the White House, who may 
hoist a flag of defiance against the world, and who will 
be ready to foster that system of affairs, in whose troubled 
waters they navigated their course to honor and renown. 
It is to repudiate still longer, and to hold in abeyance 
for some centuries the precepts of the Prince of Peace. 
We want civilians, not swordsmen ; Catos, not Caesars, nor 
Syllas at the head of Christian America. If our hearts, 
and our consciences were alive and awake, we should reject 
the idea with horror of making a military man the great 
man of the nation, and enthroning liim aloft, as our grand 
representative before the eyce, either of Christendom or 



MARTIAL GLORY. 207 

heathendom. We virtually should say by such an act, that 
is our highest ideal of what a great and good man is ; that 
is the American man. 

It will not be one of the least of the disasters of this 
Mexican crusade, that it adds new force to a false principle 
in the working of our government, and opens still wider to 
military ambition, not only its peculiar field of distinction, 
but the nobler walks of civil policy and national statesman- 
ship, where it properly has no part nor lot.* It is time that 
a policy which is too manifest in its evil effects, through all 
past history, should be abandoned forever by a government 
of the people, and a government, therefore, whose great 
interest is, and always must be. Peace, Peace. 

The illustrious Washington, himself a warrior, has testi- 
fied against war. He says : " How much more dehghtful to 
an undebauched mind is the task of making improvements 
on the earth, than all the vain glory which can be acquired 
from ravaging it by the most uninterrupted career of con- 
quests. How pitiful in the eye of reason and religion, 
is that false ambition which desolates the world with fire 
and sword, compared to the milder virtues of making our 
fellow-men as happy as their frail condition and perishable 
natures will permit them to be ! It is time for night-er- 
rantry and mad heroism to be at an end." 

The true patriot, therefore, is he who not only cries, 

* " ' Tis not in battles that from youth we train 

The Governor who must be wise and good, 

And temper with the sternness of the brain 

Thoughts motherly, and meek as womanhood. 

Wisdom doth live with children round her knees : 

Books, leisure, perfect freedom and the talk 

Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk 

Of the mind's business : these are the degrees 

By which true Sway doth mount ; this is the stalk 

True power doth grow on ; and her rights are these." 

WORDSWOKTH. 



208 TRUE DESTINY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

peace, peace, but earnestly eschews war. He most honors 
his native land, and shows himself its best friend and 
staunchest defender, not who pours oil on the war-flame, 
and exhorts the young men to fight for their country, " right 
or wrong," but who advocates peace, by word and deed. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE TRUE DESTINY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

" Your mission was, to be a model for all governments and for all 
other less favored nations ; to adhere to the most elevated principles of 
political morality ; to apply all your faculties to the gradual improve- 
ment of your own institutions and social state ; and by your example 
to exert a moral influence most beneficial to mankind at large. Instead 
of this, an appeal has been made to your worst passions ; to cupidity, 
to the thirst of unjust aggrandizement by brutal force ; to the love of 
military fame and false glory ; and it has even been tried to prevent 
the noblest feelings of your nature. The attempt is made to make 
you abandon the lofty position which your fathers occupied, to substi- 
tute for it the political morality, and heathen patriotism of the heroes 
and statesmen of antiquity." — Gallatin. 

One of the evils which the success of the Mexican inva- 
sion has produced, is to foster the pernicious notion, that we 
are, in these ambitious movements, following out our des- 
tiny.* Men have, in past times, committed the most abom- 

* "It is our destiny to occupy that vast region" (Texas). Mr. Cal- 
houn to Mr. King, Aug. 12, 1844. Append, to the Cong. Globe, 28th 
Cong. 2d Sess. p. 6. When Mr. Adams referred to Gen. 1 : 26, 27, 28, 
as the ground of the American title to Oregon, he was asked by Mr. 
Kaufman of Texas, if it would not apply equally well to the Rio 
Grande. 



TRUE DESTINY OF OUR COUNTRY. 209 

inable deeds under the holiest sanctions and pretexts. The 
first conquest of Mexico was achieved at an awful cost of 
human life, under the plea of extending the kingdom of 
Christ and the church. The second conquest has been per- 
petrated under the audacious assumption of fulfilling the 
plans of Providence by extending the so-called "area of 
freedom," and accomplishing the destiny of the Anglo Saxon 
race. Many words are not wanted to expose this infatuation, 
as it has already been handled in an earlier connection of 
this Review. 

There is a genuine Anglo Saxon destiny, of which we can 
conceive, that would be truly glorious in itself, and beneficial 
to mankind. But it is a destiny of liberty, not of license. 
It is a destiny of peace, not of war. It is a destiny of justice 
and noble ideas, not of invasions and violent annexations. 
It is a destiny whose emblems and implements are not the 
bomb and the bowie-knife, but the printing-press and the 
Bible. It is a destiny of raising up the fallen races, and 
administering wise and equal laws, wherever our dominion 
extends, not of trampling under the hoofs of the war-horse 
the prostrate red man, black man, or " dark browed Mexi- 
can." Science, commerce, and Christianity have given Eng- 
land and the United States, the two Anglo Saxon powers, 
an almost immeasurable influence over the rest of the human 
family. But God has put this sceptre into their hands for 
no idle and vain-glorious purpose, but to promote the welfare 
of mankind. Did the grand vision of a true and providen- 
tial destiny, the real mission God has sent them to accom- 
plish, dawn upon the minds of our statesmen and orators, 
our rulers and people, they would sheathe the sword for- 
ever. They would " trust not in uncertain riches, but in the 
living God ; " not in carnal, but spiritual weapons. This is 
the only worthy destiny; the only one that heaven will 
bless, or futurity honor. It is impious to talk as if any 
people were fated to be ambitious, and grasping, and a terror 

18* 



210 TRUE DESTINY OP OUR COUNTRY. 

to the race, and not a blessing. We might with as much 
propriety say, that an individual was destined to be a knave, 
or a ruffian. The Creator has, in one sense, destined all his 
children to be good and true, to obey his laws, and share in 
his promises. " He is not willing that any should perish, 
but that all should come unto repentance." But men have 
been gifted with the power of choice, and the opportunity 
of good and of evil, and if they come short of the glory of 
God, they may be said to have frustrated the divine plan, 
and not fulfilled their mission and destiny, as inamortal be- 
ings. 

These two nations are capable, if they have grace to seize 
the memorable opportunity, of leaving a mark upon the his- 
tory of mankind, " above all Greek, all Roman fame." They 
can make themselves felt for good, — we yet hope that in a 
measure they are doing so, — to the remotest isle of the sea, 
and to the savage tribe, whose name even has not yet been 
domesticated in a civilized tongue. They have the saving 
ideas of Science, Freedom, and Christianity, that are able, 
if diffused, to keep the life-blood flowing, in strong and pure 
tides through their own hearts, and also to stir the deep sleep 
of paganism with fresh and waking pulses of regeneration. 
They have both the personnel, and the materiel, the ships, 
tools, arts, studies, truths, men, to do this magnificent work. 
They and their allies of kindred European races, if faithful 
to the high vocation, wherewith they are called, and " obe- 
dient to the heavenly vision," can, in two centuries, change 
the aspect of the whole habitable globe, and make the soli- 
tary place glad, and the desert blossom like the rose. 

But if, abjuring this kingly power of beneficence, and 
turning away from this sublime mission of realizing the 
kingdom of Christ on earth, tliey bow themselves down to 
the base uses of Mammon and of Mars, they will fling away 
an opportunity of usefulness, such as has been rarely afforded 
in any juncture of history. If they consent to track' the old 



TRUE DESTINY OF OUR COUNTRY, 211 

bloody round of sordid, guilty ambition, and seek not to 
bring other tribes and races under the obedience of God, 
and harmony with his laws, but in subjection to their o^vn 
tyranny, then it requires no prophet's eye to foresee that 
they are destined to fall a prey to the same passions, suici- 
dally acting on themselves, which have poured the vials of 
wrath upon other countries. Their prodigious vices will be 
whips enough to scourge them. The immense agencies 
which might have pix)ved the instruments of an incalculable 
beneficence, will become, when perverted, only the heavier 
millstones about their necks to pull them down to perdition. 
Destiny is a fearful word, and when we pronounce it, we 
remember most vividly the life of that mighty man who 
called himself the " child of destiny," but whose star, bril- 
liant as it was, rushed headlong in an ill-fated moment from 
the zenith of its glory into eternal night. Imperial as the 
nations are, doth not the Lord " sit upon the circle of the 
earth," and "bring the princes to nothing, and make the 
judges of the earth as vanity ? 

To use an astronomical figure, our national globe has 
enough centrifugal impulse, but it needs more centripetal 
tendency. It flies round and round with fearful sweep and 
•speed, but may heaven grant, that it be held to the only true 
centre of its rotation, God. For a long time past, we have 
been but too boastful of our career, as if we could run any 
race out of the circumscription of the Deity, or attain any 
destiny but perdition, unless we followed his eternal ordi- 
nances and achieved his plan, and not our own caprice. Blind 
and foolish indeed must we be, if with the combined lights 
of history and Christianity on our path, we see any other or 
grander destiny for ourselves as a republic than that of 
righteousness, and freedom, and peace. " Peace hath her 
victories no less renowned than war." If the Anglo Saxons 
have any other destiny than that, let them beware before 
they run upon the thick bosses of those bucklers of the 



212 TRUE DESTINY OF OUR COUNTia". 

Almighty, which have already drank up the blood of the 
proudest victors. God keep us from our own ^vorst passions 
under a sanctified name ! 

Besides, the extension of our arms is far from being the 
extension of our ideas. We are far from believing that our 
armies have been missionaries of liberty or the cross to our 
semi-civilized neighbors. The battles they have fought have 
not been the triumphs of the Prince of Peace. The thou- 
sands killed will not be regarded as martyrs to the arts and 
sciences. The blood of Buena Vista and Cerro Gordo will 
not prove the seed of a new civilization. Battered cities, 
and ravaged farms are not the most significant tokens of the 
march of improvement. For we cannot suppose, that Mex- 
ico, after all the infinite evils and sufferings we have heaped 
upon her, will love us or our institutions any better than she 
did before. We have, on the contrary, violently arrested all 
those gentle and irresistible processes of assimilation and 
ameUoration which were in happy progress, and taught her 
children to curse " the men of Northern tongue." No ; the 
voice of history is clear, that the conquered hate the conquer- 
ors, and all that belongs to them, and very reluctantly, if 
ever, will they adopt their religious belief, social usages, 
forms of government, arts, and sciences, and methods of 
advancement, except by stern compulsion. The very idea 
of fighting a nation into a love of progress, is preposterous. 
We cannot overlap another country with our improvements, 
or put upon one civilization the party-colored patch of an- 
other. The spear is no instrument to take the place of the 
pruning-hook, nor the sword to do the work of the plough- 
share. The tree of civilization withers and dies, when 
watered with human blood. 



THE statesman's RETRIBUTION. 213 



CHAPTER XXL 

THE statesman's RETRIBUTION. 

" If statesmen were more accustomed to calculation, wars would be 
much less frequent." — Franklin. 

Robert Hall remarks in his Reflections on War, that, 
" if statesmen, if Christian statesmen at least, had a proper 
feeling on this subject, and would open their hearts to the 
reflections which such scenes must inspire, instead of rushing 
eagerly to arms, would they not try every expedient, every 
lenient art consistent with national honor, before they ven- 
tured on this desperate remedy, or rather, before they 
plunged into this gulf of horrors ? " None but an affirma- 
tive answer can be given to such a question. But the diffi- 
culty is, that many statesmen are not Christians, and that 
they do not have a proper feeling on the subject of war. In- 
deed, as a general rule, it is not warriors that make war in 
this age, so much as it is statesmen. Warriors know what 
war is, and they do not involve nations in a conflict so readily 
oftentimes as those who only know the theory of war : while 
statesmen, sitting at their ease, in cabinet or congress, by a 
vote or a slip of the pen, gather vast armies to the field, and 
give the signal for great nations to dash themselves against 
each other in mighty conflict. They have little proper feel- 
ing of the waste in war of life, treasure, happiness, virtue, 
liberty. 

They know not what they are doing, or if they know, it 
is a dreamy, misty, distant, and unfelt species of knowledge, 
that does not press with any motive-power on the springs of 



214 THE statesman's retribution. 

action. One day's hard march over the burning plain, one 
hour of Cerro Gordo, one night's fevered watching in the 
hospital, the amputation of their little finger, would teach 
them more what they really do when they set a war in opera- 
tion, — its wounds, and pains, and horrid deaths, — than the 
whole experience of their life-time. " I have read," said an 
actor at Palo Alto, "many accounts of battles, but never a 
description of one.'' 

The late sanguinary contest was originated in political 
causes, as already demonstrated. It was not generals but 
poHticians that filled the magazine, and laid the fatal train. 
There was a huge mass of combustible war-passions lying 
latent and ready in the American population, but they are 
chiefly responsible at the bar of God and man, who wittingly 
and deliberately touched the explosive spark. Had there 
been any " proper feehng " in the great body of American 
statesmen, of the evils and guilt of war, they never would 
have voted men and money with overwhelming majorities in 
both houses of Congress to wage a distant and invasive war- 
fare beyond the limits of our own country. Many of those 
men have already lived to lament the act into which they 
were betrayed by a sudden temptation, and many others will 
yet live to see the day when they shall bitterly deplore that 
deed of darkness, and all its evil consequences to their coun- 
try and the world. They mistook the age in which they 
lived, when they feared to be called peace-men. They did 
not anticipate the glory which would encircle the immortal 
sixteen, "faithful found among the faithless." If ever an 
earnest rebuke were deserved by large bodies of men, it is 
by those who at first weakly yielded to the call for millions 
of money and thousands of men, and voted year after year, 
after the odious schemes of conquest and slavery were dis- 
closed, still to uphold such a system of wrong and wretched- 
ness. The inconsistencies of pohtical men and parties are 
too glaring to be allowed to pass without notice and severe 



THE statesman's RETRIBUTION. 215 

condemnation. Professing freedom, they waged a war to 
extend slavery. Calling themselves the friends of the people, 
they sanctioned and supported a war that loaded their country 
with a heavy war-debt, and sent misery into multitudes of 
once happy homes. Putting peace forward as their policy, 
they have been contented with waging, for the short period 
of its continuance, one of the sharpest, bloodiest, and most 
injurious of wars. Advocating universal humanity, and the 
rights of man as men, they have forced our free institutions, 
as we call them, by stress of arms upon large portions of a 
foreign land and a foreign people. Such palpable and flagrant 
violations of right and justice will bring a retribution sooner 
or later to the authors of the war, and will involve many 
of the innocent with the guilty. Men of place and power, 
exalted as their position may be in the sight of men, are 
amenable to the laws of God. " The statesman's retribu- 
tion " is no empty phrase, but expresses a most solemn and 
instructive lesson of history. 

For it is well known the actual effect of war is, that instead 
of raising politicians to honor and authority, it puts them 
very unceremoniously aside to make way for the elevation to 
the highest civil offices of those who have fought their way 
to fame. The revolutionary war furnished one warrior, but 
more a civilian than a warrior, for the Presidency. The war 
of 1812 supplied two candidates of opposite parties, who 
entered the White House under a perfect whirlwind of 
enthusiasm. The war with Mexico has already given one 
incumbent to the lofty chair of state, and it has half a score 
of others in expectancy. Meanwhile, the great statesmen of 
the country, who have guided by their wisdom and eloquence 
the national councils, and who have shed an intellectual and 
historical glory over the pages of the past, and who will Uve 
forever on the tongues of men, have been passed by, or if 
raised to this more than kingly eminence, have occupied it 
but for the shortest possible period. 



216 THE statesman's retribution. 

" When politicians bring on war," says the North American 
Review, April, 1848, " they must pay the penalty. In repub- 
lics, if civihans wish to retain their just influence as states- 
men, they must preserve peace. War always has given, and 
always will give, in our own and in every free country, 
ascendency to mihtary reputation. Snatching the prizes of 
poHtical ambition from the pohtician, it will carry the suc- 
cessful general to his seats of power. Some of the poli- 
ticians who pushed this country into the war of 1812, still 
live to brood over the fact, that that war raised up military 
chieftains who clutched from their grasp the presidential 
crown, which otherwise would have encircled their brows in 
sure succession. It is a most instructive circumstance in our 
history, that when James Madison, then at the head of the 
government, manifested a reluctance to favor a declaration 
of war with England, a committee of three was despatched 
from a republican caucus to communicate to him the deter- 
mination of that party to insist upon the measure. The 
experienced wisdom of that great statesman was overruled, 
and constrained by the short-sighted zeal of less wary poli- 
ticians. Of that caucus Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun 
were the master spirits, and of that committee they were 
members. Although quite young men^ they had, by their 
genius and eloquence, even then acquired the greatest degree 
of popularity that can be attained in the sphere of states- 
manship. The whole nation was waiting, with admiring 
eagerness, to confer upon them, one after the other, its high- 
est honor. They had their way, and war was declared. 
When the revolutionary series of Presidents was brought to 
a close, on the retirement of James Munroe, Gen. Jackson, 
the hero of New Orleans, took from Mr. Clay so many of 
the electoral votes of the West, and from Mr. Calhoun so 
many of the votes of the South and Middle States, as to 
leave them both distanced in the race. The popularity of 
Jackson yielded only to that of General Harrison, the hero 



THE statesman's RETRIBUTION. 217 

of Tippecanoe ; and a fresh crop of military chieftains has 
just been reared, to destroy, in all probability, the last chance 
of these veteran aspirants for the great prize. It is not the 
least of the eminent services they have rendered their coun- 
try, that, in their baffled ambition, the distinguished states- 
men and truly great men whom we have named, teach to all 
coming times the salutary lesson, that, if politicians will have 
war, they must step aside forever from the j)ath of honor, 
and relinquish the posts of power to overshadowing rivals, 
created by their own suicidal hands. It is not unhkely, that 
this lesson will be corroborated by the political results of the 
war in which the country is now involved. Let us hope that 
it may make a deep and durable impression upon that class 
of persons whom it so vitally concerns. When the leaders 
of parties become convinced, that in promoting warlike 
measures and a military spirit, they are digging their own 
graves, we confidently rely upon perpetual peace." 

The same general rule has held good in regard to a host 
of other offices. The warrior has ever taken precedence of 
the statesman, however wise or great. We have preferred 
men of action to men of thought, and have cared little appar- 
ently what their actions were. Nothing shows more dis- 
tinctly the low and coai'se type of modern civilization than 
this choice of warriors to conduct the affairs of Christian 
nations. No mistake could be greater than for civilians to 
encourage the madness of war, and hope in times of turbu- 
lence to rise to honor and place. For by every war they 
foment and wage, they are calling into existence numbers of 
popular and well-known rivals, who will easily distance them 
in any race for office. However well educated, large in 
experience, ripe in civil wisdom, eloquent in council, sagacious 
in trouble, indefatigable in serving the country, patriotic in 
sentiment, and really laboring for the true glory of the land 
and the true good of the human family, the mighty orator, 
the profound statesman, the far-famed jurist, or the unsullied 

19 



218 THE statesman's retribution. 

patriot will be brushed aside from the path to honor of the 
successful warrior, as if he were a mere fly. The motto at 
the head of this chapter is significant. When will politicians 
learn wisdom? When will they pause before they make 
wars, vainly hoping thus to gain popularity with their coun- 
trymen? When will they cease to be instrumental of the 
bold incongruity of minghng the despotism of war with the 
working of free institutions, and the professions of a Chris- 
tian people with the morality, manners, and spirit of the 
camp ? When will they open their eyes to the fact, that so 
far as they encouraged the spirit of war in their countrymen, 
they are preparing trouble and ruin for the days to come ; 
that they are going counter at once to the dictates of repub- 
licanism and Christianity ; that they are reversing the pro- 
gress of the world, and bringing back the ages of darkness 
and blood ? And when, especially, will they learn that im- 
pressive lesson of the past, that statesmen however eminent, 
legislators however sagacious, diplomatists however success- 
ful, and jurists however learned, will stand no chance in the 
competition for pohtical honors and office with him who has 
smelt gunpowder ? The liighest admonitions of patriotism 
and religion thus combine with the lowest of self-interest to 
warn them against the folly and the wickedness of seeking 
to make our country a great military power. 

Let them strive to repress and calm the mania for war in 
our land. Let them direct the energies of a youtliful nation 
into the channels of industry and public improvement. Let 
them understand that it will be no honor or happiness for 
us to attempt to live over the warlike past of the old world, 
and acquire war-debts, war-taxes, and Avar-customs, that will 
make the remotest generations groan and curse us for our 
foolishness. Oh, let the great men of our country under- 
stand, that if they would be truly gi-eat, and would live in 
the glad remembrance of their countrymen, they must ally 
themselves to lofty principles and causes, — Freedom, Peace, 



WAR MAXIMS. 219 

Temperance, Rigliteousness, Truth, — which will survive 
the transient excitements of the claj, and the httle questions 
of party and place, and bear on the names of their advocates 
to be loved and reverenced by generations yet unborn. For 
as the intellectual and moral life of mankind is more devel- 
oped, and the spiritual aim of the Gospel is more nearly 
reached, the true benefactors of the race will be more and 
more associated with this new era of progress, while the 
names of those who proved false to the high trust of their 
times, and basely consented to the iniquities which have 
blasted the life and happiness of successive nations and races 
in history, will be 'held in deserved and perpetual execration, 
as the real traitors to their country and its institutions, who 
were willing for a mess of pottage to sell the birthright of 
Freedom, and the Hope of the world. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

WAR MAXIMS. 

*' To spoil, to slaughter, and to commit every violence; and then call 
the manoeuvre- by a lying name, — government ; and when they have 
spread a general devastation, — call it peace." — Tacitus. 

Most men desire to maintain some consistency of charac- 
ter and conduct, and hence, in order to justify the doing of 
such deeds, as we have recorded, they appeal to certain prin- 
ciples like the following. " Our country, right or wrong ; " * 
or, as paraphrased by a distinguished general, " between my 
govermnent and a foreign nation, I never ask a question. 

* Commodore Decatur. 



220 WAR MAXIMS. 

My government is always right." "Conquer a peace;** 
" Do evil that good may come." Make war on Mexico that 
we may extend "the area of freedom," and civilize, and 
Protestantize her. To all such principles it is enough to 
reply, that they are good enough as secondary, but not as 
supreme motives of conduct. Our firet and highest relation 
is to God, and our first duty, therefore, is to ask, " Lord, 
what would'st thou have us do ? " Christ is a greater name 
than country. He must pronounce upon all social customs 
and public affairs, and what he condemns, is condemned, and 
what he approves, is approved by all his faithful followers. 
We are not allowed to make oar country our god, though we 
are bound to do her good service. The only difference of 
opinion is, what is good service to her? Is it to encourage 
and assist her in a wicked and barbarous war, and to fan the 
war-spirit to greater intensity, or is it to check her going 
headlong in a heaven-defying career of conquest and usur- 
pation ? He does most to keep her fame untarnished, not 
who fights her unjust battles, but who preserves her truth, 
and justice, and freedom from becoming obsolete ideas in 
the w^orking of her institutions. Jesus said, "he that loveth 
father or mother moi'e than me, is not worthy of me." Even 
the tenderest social relations were less to be regarded than 
the spiritual claims of his faith and love ; then how much 
more w ould he have said the same of the ties of country. 
They are good, but not the best ; they are great, but not the 
greatest. 

This wronging of conscience and sophistication of reason 
by the maxims of this war are not the least of the ill effects 
to which it has given birth. How many have adopted the 
maxim, " our country, right or wrong," cannot be known, 
but it has had a wide-spread currency and popularity. The 
ancient doctrine, " the king can do no wrong," * has been 

* King Henry V. in disguise and three soldiers.] 
K. Henry. " Methinks I would not die any where so contented as in 
the king's company ; his cause being just and his quarrel honorable. 



WAR MAXIMS. 221 

supplanted by another^ maxim every way as fatal to a Chris- 
tian manhood. K we are to be ruled by a tyrant, whose 
behests must be obeyed at whatever sacrifice of individual 
scruples and remonstrances of conscience, it matters little 
whether that tyrant be called "king," or "country." A 
democracy may oppress as well as a monarchy. If we pro- 
ceed upon the principle, that we are under obligations to do 
whatever our rulers command, be it an act of pillage or 
blood, not because it is right, but because they command it, 
then we are back again, as to all practical intents and pur- 
poses, in the age of passive obedience and bUnd adhesion to 
authority, slaves, tools, of the make-plots and the mar-plots 

Will. " That 's more than we know. 

Bates. "Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know 
enough, if we are tlie king's subjects ; if his cause be wrong our obe- 
dience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us. 

Will. " But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy 
reckoning to make ; when all those legs and arms, and heads chopped 
off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, ' We died 
at such a place ; ' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon ; some, 
upon their wives being left poor behind them ; some upon the debts 
they owe ; some upon their children rawly left. I am afeared there are 
few die well, that die in battle ; for how can they charitably dispose of 
any thing when blood is their argument 1 Now if these men do not 
die well, it will be black matter for the king that led them to it, whom 
to disobey were against all proportion of subjection. 

K. Henri/. " Then if they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty 
of their damnation than he was before guilty for those impieties for 
which they are now visited. Every subject's duty is the king's ; but 
every subject's soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the 
wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every moth out of his con- 
science : and dying so, death is to him an advantage ; or not dying, 
the time was blessedly lost, wherein such preparation was gained : and. 
in him that escapes, it were not sin to think, that making God so free 
an offer, he let him outlive that day to see his greatness, and to teach 
others how they should prepare. 

Will. " 'T is certain that every man that dies ill, the ill is upon his 
own head, the king is not to answer for it." — Shrdspenrf. 

19* 



222 WAR MAXIMS. 

of the men in power. In foisting such a saying into the 
mouths of men at this day, and getting it into a newspaper 
immortality, tyranny has stolen a march upon freedom, and 
free institutions become but a name " to point a moral, or 
adorn a tale." The old spirit has revived under a new name. 
We are to have not the tyrant Our, but the tyrant Million, 
who may be quite as intolerable, and quite as subversive of 
that true liberty, which resj)ects the rights of conscience, as 
the dearest object of life, and the last a moral being would 
consent to relinquish. If we are to uphold our country in 
her wrong, as in her right principles and measures, farewell 
to the prerogatives of an American, the patrimony of free- 
men. We are then a nation of slaves. 

Was it not for these same rights of conscience, that the 
toil and treasure of the past have been freely lavished ? Was 
it not for this birthright of the soul that our fathers fled their 
country, lived in exile, crossed the ocean, made the wilder- 
ness their home, and companied with wild beasts, and wilder 
men ? What nobler staple runs through the history of the 
past than this sturdy, lofty independence for conscience' sake ? 
This is the glory that still lingers on many a spot of the old 
world, and makes holy ground of many a battle-field, tomb, 
and church, where wise and holy men lifted up the voice of 
non-conformity to the acts of tyrants, and dared all, and lost 
all, for the sake of keeping " a conscience void of offence." 
And shall this new world, in her virgin promise, repudiate 
the single glorious principle which sheds such splendid renown 
over the darkest scenes of history ? The names of Huguenot, 
and Covenanter, and Puritan are not lightly thus to be taken 
in vain. 

Instead of this blind and unquestioning devotion to " coun- 
try, right or wrong," or rather to the existing government of 
the country, for we believe that a majority of the American 
people were always hostile to the war, how much more truly 
noble and Christian it would have been for the officers, who 



WAR MAXIMS. 223 

were opposed to the invasion, and many of the leading ones 
were, to say; "we will defend our country when she is 
attacked ; but our duty can never require of us to go on a 
warfai-e of conquest. This is not the purpose of government, 
and especially of our government, which is to secure the 
rights, and protect the lives, and liberty, and property of all. 
We can fight in a defensive, but not in an offensive war ; in 
a defence of freedom, but not in a crusade for slavery. We 
will rather imitate the example of Lord Effingham in the 
British army, and Capt. Thrush in the navy, and retire from 
the service, than wound our consciences, and really wrong 
our country by encouraging those who hold her destinies in 
their hand, to plunge into a career of rapine and blood. If 
this be treason, make the most of it. It is better to rebel 
against our country than against our God." 

K our country be wrong in her internal policy, or admin- 
istration of civil national affairs, does any press or person 
hesitate a moment to condemn the wrong, and uphold by 
word and deed, by the potent weapon of a freeman, the 
ballot-box, the cause of the right ? No, never. Why then 
should so different a rule obtain in international affairs ? 
Are not the questions of war and peace as momentous, as 
needful to be determined by the principles of right, as the 
measures of tariffs, internal improvements, or sub-treasury ? 
The same laws bind us as citizens that bind us as men. If 
we are not at liberty to do wrong as men, we are not at 
liberty to do so as Americans. If it would be wrong to up- 
hold an evil among ourselves, because it is the voice of the 
government, which is not always the voice of the people at 
the time, and which is often far from being the voice of 
God, shall we advocate the idea of vindicating, even to the 
death, our country's course, when we openly avow, or strongly 
suspect, she is in the wrong ? Never, never. " For what 
shall it profit our country, if it gain the whole world at the 
expense of its soul?" 



224 WAR MAXIMS. 

To " conquer a peace," * another phrase often used, if it 
have any ordinary meaning, signifies to destroy a peace, and 
overthrow it. During two long years of blood, and rapine, 
and demoralization, did this war subjugate the powers of 
peace. But at the last the sword settled nothing. Nego- 
tiation was more powerful than eighteen-pounders. The 
pen of the commissioner was mightier than the sword of the 
conqueror. Two wise men from Mexico and the United 
States, meeting amicably together, could, upon the basis of 
the late treaty, have easily secured to the United States, 
in the way of a business transaction, all the territory she 
wanted by means of the bonus of $20,000,000 she has now 
paid, without shedding one di-op of human blood. The like 
has been done before, and it might have been done again. 

" Take away the SAVord, 
States can be saved without it." 

Some other phrases referred to have been considered in 
other connections of this review, but we turn to another war- 
maxim. 

The coat-of-arms of Great Britain has the motto, with 
heraldic devices, '■'• Dleu et mon droit," " God and my right," 
flanked by a lion on one side and a unicorn on the other. 
But where would Great Britain be, if she were treated her- 
self on the principle which she thus holds forth as the high- 
est expression of the spirit of her government? Suppose 
the nations of the world should insist on the utmost claims 
of right with her, where would be most of her riches and 
possessions? What would be the result of carrying out such 
a doctrine in the world but eternal war ? Observe that it is 

* Coleridge is said to be the original author of this self-contradictory 
phrase. Shakspcare better saj's, 

" A peace is of the nature of a conquest ; 
For tiien botli parties nobly are subdued, 
And neither party loser," 



WAR MAXIMS. 225 

not Grod and right, but my right ; not yours, but mine ; that 
selfish. word, my. I will have my rights, whether you have 
yours or not. I will yield nothing, concihate, compassionate 
nothing, but exact sternest justice. 

So, likewise, we have a much commended saying among 
us, that we " will ask for nothing which is not right, and 
will submit to nothing which is wrong." Then we cannot 
live in this world. For we are often obliged to forego our 
rights, often obliged to yield to what is wrong in others. 
What would be our condition as a nation, as individuals, if 
we were treated one day by God as we propose in this rude 
and barbarous justice to treat mankind ? We should not be 
at all. We should be non-existent. For we hang upon the 
skirts of the divine compassion ; we live at the momentary 
merciful will of our God. If he treated us as we deserve, 
and were strict to mark our iniquities against us, who could 
stand before him ? Could we as a people ? could we as 
individuals? Not one moment. We are not so careful to 
render to others their dues and their rights, as not often to 
need their pardon for the wrong ; we are not so particular 
in our conduct towards our Supreme Judge, as not daily and 
hourly to need his forbearance. We are to claim our right, 
but not with wrong; we are not, Shylock-like, to practise 
on a blind and inexorable justice alone. The apostle assures 
us that sometimes mercy is to rejoice against judgment ; at 
any rate, that he is in imminent danger of having judgment 
without mercy, who has shown no mercy. It is a fearful 
declaration, and should make us pause, before we say that 
we will submit to no wrong ; else we commit ourselves to a 
principle at war with nature, providence, and the whole 
structure of human society. 

In truth, a great proportion of the difficulties in the world 
arise from this disposition to vindicate our own rights, let 
whose rights else suffer, and to push matters to the utmost 
verge of lawful allowance, rather than to pursue a mild and 



226 WAR MAXIMS. 

forbearing policy. We are men, mortal, erring, sinful. 
Who are we, to judge another man's servants ? Who are 
we, to take into our hands the blazing thunderbolts of ven- 
geance ? " Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather 
give place to wrath." 

We profess to be a Christian nation, and we would feel 
aggrieved if we were denied this honorable name. And 
what is the law of our master, and how do we obey it ? Is 
it not mercy, pardon, forbearance, forgiveness, from one end 
to the other of the Gospels ? Did he not enrol it among the 
beatitudes ? " Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain 
mercy." Did he not say with emphatic reiteration, " Bless 
them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefuUy use 
you?" Did he not command us to "forgive our enemies, 
and to be merciful as our father in heaven is merciful?" 

In short, it is right to be merciful, according to Chris- 
tianity ; it is not a weakness, but a duty. It is right some- 
times to yield to a wrong, and overlook it, rather than com- 
mit a greater wrong by resistance and exaction. It is right 
sometimes to waive our rights, and generously to suffer our- 
selves, rather than to make others suffer, though they deserve 
it. It is not weakness, but strength, not shame, but honor, 
to forgive, not seven times only, but seventy times seven, if 
the offender turn and pray to be forgiven. 

We cannot better conclude this chapter than by briefly 
adding, to what has been elsewhere said on the subject 
of preparing war hy preparing for war, the late remarks 
of the Earl of Aberdeen, formerly Secretary of State for 
Foreign Affairs, in the House of Lords, in England, — "I 
am disposed to dissent from that maxim which has been so 
generally received, that, 'if you wish for peace, you must 
be prepared for war.' It may have applied to the nations of 
antiquity, and to society in a comparatively barbarous and 
uncivilized state, when warlike preparations cost but little ; 
but in the state of society in which we now live, when the 



MARTIAL LITERATURE. 227 

warlike preparations of great powers are made at enormous 
expense, I say that so far from their being any security to 
peace they are directly the contrary, and tend at once to 
war. For it is natural that men, having adopted means 
they think efficient to an end, should desire to put their 
efficiency to the test, and to have some direct result from 
their labor and expense. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



MARTIAL LITERATURE. 



" Seven years' fighting sets a whole kingdom back in learning and 
virtue to which they were creeping, it may be a whole age." — Jeremy 
Bentham. 

" The course of education from infancy to manhood, at present pur- 
sued, tends to inspire the mind with military ardor and a love of 
glory. Almost as soon as a boy is born, care is taken to give his mind 
a military turn," — William Ladd. 

We have before us a list of forty-eight volumes, which are 
connected with the late war, and which generally approve 
highly of its occurrence. They consist of both prose and 
poetry, history and biography, travels and essays. They 
are deeply imbued with the martial spirit, and laud to the 
skies the achievements of the American arms in Mexico. 

One of the unhappy consequences of this war is, that it 
has thus created a literature adverse to morals, refinement 
and religion. This war-literature has circulated tlu'ough 
the newspapers and cheap works over the whole land. 
The lives of victorious generals, the bloody feats of prowess, 



228 MARTIAL LITERATURE. 

the histories of battles and sieges, have formed a good part 
of the reading of the mass of the people, and especially of 
many young persons, during the three past years. The 
sacred power of poetry has been desecrated to laud the cruel 
deeds of war. The historian has exhausted upon it all 
his research. The fine arts have been employed to pamper 
the love of war, and by pictures and panoramas, to set on 
fire the blood of youth with the intoxicating passion of mar- 
tial achievements. The country is full of these things. 
Every village has its " views " of battles, and the siege at 
Vera Cruz, or the charge at Buena Vista. The eye of youth is 
taught to sparkle at the sight of a battle-piece, before it 
knows what war is. The natural effect upon society of such 
reading, and war-songs, and exhibitions is exceedingly unfa- 
vorable to all the leading moral interests of a free country. 
It places before the individual a false standard of character, 
and cheats him into the belief that the best end of life 
is to figure in some important scene, to do some great thing, 
however wrong or bloody, and to disown the quiet pur- 
suits of peace. It places before the nation a wrong standard, 
and befools the people with the idea that war, and not 
peace, is their real interest, that they shall gain some 
valuable end by invading the domains of their neighbors, 
and conquering a vast extent of barren and unhealthy terri- 
tory. The idea of the true destiny of our country in hberty, 
equality and self-government, has by this miasma of war 
been corrupted into the false idea of our destiny as con- 
sisting in power, military renown, and the vulgar guilt of 
the savage nations of old, or the unbaptized empires of 
modern Europe. 

The news of war, the descriptions of cities taken, of vic- 
tories won, of men killed, are of a poisonous moral influence. 
They paganize a Christian people. They familiarize them 
witli carnage and cruelty. They make them forget the 
sermon on the mount, and the prayer on the cross. They 



MARTIAL LITERATURE. 229 

fill the heads and hearts of the joung with perverted notions 
of right and wrong, and educate them in their day and gene- 
ration to be men of blood. No nation ever came out of 
war but with a lowered standard of moral principle, and 
an increased amount of profligacy, and an augmented num- 
ber of drunkards, vagabonds, gamblers, and wretched, ruined 
men. 

At the present day, when the people almost univer- 
sally read, the evil of such a literature is greatly enhanced. 
It is so cheap that all can buy it. It is so ditFused, that 
it enters every nook and corner of the land. It is so stimu- 
lating to the curiosity and passions of half-educated minds, 
that they find it invested with all the charms of romance. 
Indeed not less than half a dozen novels of the cheap kind, 
independently of the histories and biographies above enume- 
rated ; have already taken their plots and incidents from 
the war with Mexico. Nor has this military literature by any 
means exhausted itself. The advertising columns show that 
it has new productions in reserve. The seed of future wars 
has thus been sown broadcast over our country, and wrong 
impressions have been made upon thousands of young 
and ductile minds which will never be effaced. 

The numerous war-speeches in and out of Congress, the 
voluminous war-documents issued from the capital of the 
country, and the public journals spreading before the eyes of 
millions of readers the " glorious news from Mexico," the 
" great victory won," all belong to this noxious species 
of literature. For unless accompanied with proper correc- 
tives and remonstrances, they pervert the moral principles 
of the people, arouse their passion for arms, and Avithdraw 
their interest and attention from those humble but praise- 
worthy pursuits of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, 
which cannot compete with the brilliant exploits of sieges 
and battles, '• in pomp and circumstance." " The pesti- 
lence that walketh in darkness and the destruction that 
20 



230 MARTIAL LITERATURE. 

wasteth at noonday" have been abroad in our land, and 
gathered from city and country the fearful harvest of death ; 
but better, far better, that an annual cholera should deci- 
mate our population, than that the deadly malaria of such a 
literature should infect the mind and corrupt the heart of 
America. The evil in one case is death to the body, but 
in the other it is death to Freedom, death to the progress of 
Peace, and death to the hopes of the world. Vast and 
beneficent is the influence of a pure and elevated literature ; 
but when the historians and orators of a nation contribute 
by their works to foster the spirit of war and the pagan pas- 
sion of glory, they are calling back the dark ages of blood 
and oppression again to overshadow the earth. Many a 
splendid lyric from the poet's burning soul, many a persua- 
sive appeal from the speaker's inmost heart, have gone forth 
against this war. We are thankful for these indignant 
remonstrances against e^dls that could not be arrested. But 
let us pray, if for one thing more unceasingly than another, 
that the hterature and the fine arts of America may be res- 
cued from following the example of the old world, and that 
they may consecrate their glorious creations of genius and 
beauty to the God, not of war, but of Peace. Let them 
adopt the noble motto of Allston, " No battle-pieces." 



WAR AND THE FIRESIDE. 231 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

WAR AND THE FIRESIDE. 

" The tramp of marching hosts disturbs the plough, 
The sword, not sickle, reaps the harvest now, 
And where the soldier gleans the scant supply, 
The helpless peasant but retires to die ; 
No laws his hut from licensed outrage shield, 
And war's least horror is th' ensanguined field. 
Fruitful in vain, the matron counts with pride 
The blooming youths that grace her honored side. 
No son retuiTis to press her widowed hand, 
Her fallen blossoms strew a foreign strand." 

Mrs. Barbauld. 

Regarding, as we do, the domestic relations of life as 
the appointment of heaven for the education, and happiness 
of mankind, and home as the centre of some of the purest 
and happiest influences known in society, we come now to 
consider the Mexican war in its bearing on these great 
interests of the respective countries involved in the conflict. 
The preceding chapters have already told a part of the tale. 
But the subject is one of sufficient moment to deserve a 
separate consideration. " The war and the fireside" need to 
be brought into direct juxtaposition, that all the wickedness 
of the one may be revealed in the light and blessedness of 
the other. When Satan approached the Garden, where 
dwelt the happy pair, the mighty poet represents him as 
clothing himself in the most seductive, but most fatal, guise. 
War puts on its most specious garb of honor, patriotism, 
and freedom, when it comes to take away the pillars and 



232 "WAR AND THE FIRESIDE. 

ornaments of the Christian home, but it aHures only to 
betray, and promises but to disap])oint. Its vast multitudes 
of warring, desperate men, are all sons, many of them 
fathers, and husbands, most of them brothers. They not 
only bear the dreadful implements of destruction, and the 
badges of their respective corps, but they carry in every 
feature and outline of body some hereditary trace of an en- 
deared parentage, some look of the fireside, some habit 
of home. These beings are not fiends and devils, though, 
when they are plunged in the hurricane of the battle-field, 
they might be so regarded by a spectator from some other 
planet, unfamiliar with the proceedings of men upon our 
earth. In that dense array of armed men meet the diverg- 
ent lines of ten thousand happy firesides ; the cords of love 
from some far-distant log-cabin, or refined family, are pulling 
at the hearts of the embattled host, and nothing rises so 
vividly to memory, while they hang over the giddy risks of 
life and death before them, as the dear ones that they have 
left behind, perhaps forever. " War and the fireside" ! 
how contrasted, and yet how connected ! One, the name of 
every thing most awful in passion, pain, vice, outrage, and 
death ; the other, the name of all the sweetest joys, hopes, 
possessions and associations out of heaven. 

And when the fight is over, humanity once more re- 
assumes her sway, and returns to the field where thousands 
lie dead, thousands in the agonies of death, and thousands in 
the ten-fold agonies of life, disputing with death the posses- 
sion of her subjects. As the hand of kindness raises this 
soldier's gory head, what word does he murmur ? It is, 
wife, mother, sister ! As the blood gurgles from the shot- 
hole in the side of that dragoon, and every pulsation grows 
fainter, what whispered syllables still linger and tremble on 
the convulsed lips ? They are, father, brother, son. O 
God, we devoutly ejaculate, when we see or think of such 
scenes, can this be the work of thy human children, and of 



WAR AND THE FIRESIDE. 233 

brothers one of another ? Can the tender frames that were 
once borne in a mother's arms, and nursed at a mother's 
breast, have made the living breast-work against the cannon's 
mouth ? Can the hand that once grasped a tenderer hand, 
and vowed the vow " for better for worse, for richer for 
poorer," now swing the cleaving sword, or urge the piercing 
bayonet ? War has brought all these horrors to pass ; and 
when its dead are buried, and its sick collected in the hospi- 
tal, then it sends back to the lovely places of domestic 
happiness the heart-rending intelligence of its dear bought 
victories, or bloody defeats, and fills a whole land with lam- 
entation and tears. Every mail carries its sorrow to some 
household. Every newspaper records the bereavement of 
some fond wife, some aged father, some widowed mother, 
some orphan children. And into myriads of once happy circles 
where the messenger of the ill tidings of death never comes, 
he nevertheless sends the perpetual chill of gloomy fears 
and forebodings, and keeps every ear on the alert to hear a 
sinister step, every heart-string quivering with the anguish of 
hope deferred, or torn by tidings of sickness, or wounds, or 
captivity. 

And then, putting aside all these considerations of the 
heart, which all that have hearts must feel, how positively 
does war wage a universal hostility against every physical 
and economical interest of home. It induces reckless habits, 
and spendthrift ways. It squanders on the extra finery of 
the uniform or the equipments, what would fill the larder, or 
give a book to a child, or a quarters tuition at school. It 
raises the taxes already high, and ill borne. It withdraws 
the prop and best workman of the family to waste his sinews 
in a remote country. It returns the halt, the lame, the 
blind, the maimed, the sick, to be nursed and cared for the 
remainder of their days. It leaves many a widowed and 
orphan group to the tender mercies of a cold and un- 
feeling world. And it hands down to succeeding ages the 
20* 



234 -SVAR AND THE FIRESIDE. 

legacy of its debts, taxes, expensive vices, pension list, sine- 
cures, and its immoral histories of violence, blood, and 
outrage, to sow the seeds of trouble in new bridal homes, 
and fling a shadow of gloom over the firesides of the third 
and fourth generations. 

The following reflections, after '' a famous victory," by 
one of the most popular editors and writers of the country, 
are as feeling and beautiful as they are true and melancholy. 
Why cannot those who make war " think of these things," 
before they set in operation, by a few strokes of the pen, 
such an engine of domestic wretchedness and ruin ? 

" Every battle field," says the Louisville Journal, '" is the 
source of inexpressible grief, and woe, and agony. To say 
nothing of the gory victims that on such fields yield up their 
latest breath, who shall attempt to portray the agony that 
must pierce the hearts of their surviving friends ? The battle 
of Buena Yista may be consecrated to fame, and poets may 
hymn its glories, and attune their harps to sing the praise 
of its survivors, and to chant mournful requiems over the 
graves of the gallant dead ; but that bloody field Avill also 
be consecrated to human woe. Each one of the thousand 
that were martyred to the feU spirit of w^ar, had his friends, 
by whom his loss will be mourned. Many fathers there fell, 
leaving helpless children to struggle with the stormy tides 
of life, without the protection of the parental arm. Many 
husbands there died, leaving trusting wives to lament in 
bitterness of soul their loss. The dearly -beloved sons of 
hoary-headed sires there sighed their la^t breath away, to be 
mourned awhile and soon to be followed to the land of spirits 
by those to whom their loss is irreparable. When we reflect 
on the desolation that will be carried to thousands of fire- 
sides, — the gloom that will hang like a cloud over number- 
less homes, lately bright with the hues of happiness, — the 
tears of orphans, the shrieks of wives, and mothers, and sis- 
ters, the ffroans of fathers, and sous, and brothers, — the 



WAR AND THE FIRESIDE. 235 

wide-spread and lasting grief that will result from the car- 
nao-e of the field of Buena Vista, what heart can refuse its 
sympathy with the iJereaved, or refrain from cursing the 
infatuation which renders such scenes of blood necessary ?" 

" You could tell at a glance," says Capt. Henry, in his 
" Campaign Sketches," " the wounded of Palo Alto or Resaca 
de la Palma. The latter were mostly bullet wounds ; the 
amputated limbs told of the cannon's fearful execution in the 
former. Beside one poor fellow a beautiful girl of seventeen 
was seated, keeping off the flies. She was his wife. In 
another corner, a family group, the mother and her children 
were seated by the wounded father. One bright-eyed little 
girl quite took my fancy, and my heart bled to think that 
thus early she should be introduced to so much wretched- 
ness. On one bed was a corpse ; on another was one dying, 
holding in his hand the grape-shot that had passed through 
his breast. He showed it to us with a sad countenance. I 
left the hospital shocked Avith the horrors of war." 

" On the field of Resaca de la Palma," says Mr. Thorpe, 
" there was an affecting scene enacted among the dead sol- 
diers. One of the first that fell mortally wounded was an 
Irishman, — a remarkably brave fellow. All the night ensu- 
ing, his poor wife sat upon the field, the stiffened corpse of 
her husband resting on her lap, her little child asleep by her 
side. As the sun rose in the morning, she was discovered, 
surrounded with the dead, her head upon her husband's 
breast, absorbed in grief. As the day wore on, the stench 
of the field became offensive ; but still she held her seat by 
the side of tiie lifeless clay, and in paroxysms of overwhelm- 
ing sorrow she was torn from the dead, tliat it might be con- 
signed to its mother earth." 

Speaking of the houses where the wounded were placed 
at Matamoras, he says ; " amidst all their misery and deso- 
lation, amidst these places so humbling to pride, so sacrificing 
to vanity, woman was there, devoted to a husband or a broth- 



236 WAR AND THE FIRESIDE. 

er ; she sat in the dust, fanned away the torturing insects 
that hved on blood, and revelled in wounds, sanctifying the 
most menial offices by her spirit and influence, and shedding 
by her smiles, by her silent attentions, by her teachings of 
hope in another world, the only bright rays that are seen to 
glimmer in a Mexican hospital." 

Speaking of another battle, he writes, "appalHng indeed 
were the scenes on that field of carnage. Many of the 
wounded writhed in agony, and others, quiet in their last 
hour of life, gazed with anxious eyes towards the setting 
sun ; their faces, in the morning glowing with health, were 
now wan as if with months of consuming disease. All begged 
but for one drop of water to quench the thirst that consumed 
their vitals. Along the pathway of the shot that fairly 
raked through the solid columns of the Tennessee regiment, 
lay extended the dead in every conceivable position of hor- 
ror ; headless trunks, and limbless bodies cut in twain. The 
faces of some wore the placid smile of happiness ; in others, 
the life-blood had ebbed away, leaving the expression of 
defiance and revenge marked upon the inanimate clay. The 
wounded strove to creep about, or, thrown hurriedly into 
wagons to be conveyed to the surgeons, w^ere in despair for 
their condition ; for they well knew that war permitted no 
care for their condition, no thought for their relief, no gentle 
sympathy for their pain, and before them was wasting dis- 
ease, perhaps lingering death. Far from home, no assiduous 
friend, no affectionate sister, no loving mother soothed their 
anguish. The poor private died unnoticed and unknown, 
yet by some quiet hearthstone, far from the tumult of cities, 
tears will be shed for his fall ; the stern old father will nerve 
himself to his loss, by the thought that the sacrifice was made 
for his country, w^hile the aged mother's heart bleeds with a 
wound time cannot heal. To such retreats must we go, if 
we Avould learn all the suffering that resulted from that scene 
before the walls of Monterey." 



WAR AND THE FIIIESIDZ. '2ot 

It was in reference to another battle, that Whittier com- 
posed the noble poem, entitled, " the Angels of Buena Vista," 
founded on the following facts. 

" A letter writer from Mexico states, that at the terrible 
fight of Buena Vista, Mexican women were seen hovering 
near the field of death, for the purpose of giving aid and 
succor to the wounded. One poor woman was surrounded 
by the maimed and suffering of both armies, ministering to 
the wants of Americans as well as Mexicans, with impartial 
tenderness." 

We give a few of the concluding stanzas of this melting, 
pathetic ballad. 

" Look forth once more Ximena ! " " Like a cloud before the wind 
Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood and death behind ; 
Ah ! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the wounded strive; 
Hide your faces, holy angels I oh, thou Christ of God, forgive ! 

" Sink, night, among thy mountains I let thy cool, gray shadows fall; 
Dying brothers, fighting demons — drop thy curtain over all ! 
Through the qxiickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled ; 
In his sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold. 

"But the holy Mexic women still their holy task pursued. 
Through that long, dark night of son-ow, worn and faint, and lacking 

food. 
Over weak and suffering brothers with a tender care they hung, 
And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue. 

" Not wholly lost, Father ! is this evil world of ours ; 
Upward through its blood and ashes, spring afresh the Eden flowers ; 
From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer, 
And still thy white- winged angels hover dimly in our air ! " 

The personal narratives from trustworthy sources are intro- 
duced in this review of the Mexican war, as revealing to us 
more distinctly than whole pages of general description 



238 WAR AND THE FIRESIDE. 

could do, the indescribable and infinite miseries which alight 
upon the homes of warring nations. We have much more 
of the same materials on hand, but these must suffice, and 
perhaps more than suffice. We have already " supped full 
of horrors." 

War is indiscriminate. It confounds the innocent with 
the guilty in one fate, or, it may be, spares the bad to in- 
volve the righteous man in ruin. It burns the widow's cot- 
tage, wliile it may leave unharmed the tyrant's palace. It 
kills, perchance, the father's only son, the staff of his old 
age, and lets the assassin and robber escape with impunity. 
Fearful, therefore, beyond the power of human thought, is 
his act who takes the responsibility of involving two nations 
in its wide-spread havoc. What is it but to assume for the 
moment the powers of the Omnipotent without his wisdom 
and mercy ? to vault, as it were, into his seat, and let fly the 
armies of devouring locusts, or lift the lid of the boiling 
volcano, and inundate cities with floods of fire and lava, or 
rock the land with earthquakes, and overwhelm multitudes 
of human beings beneath the ruins of falling temples and 
dwellings ! When will the rulers and legislators of the 
nations awake to their awful accountableness in being either 
principals or accessories to bringing on a war ? 

How shockingly mal apropos and incongruous was that 
sentiment given by some orator on a festive occasion to some 
companies parading for their departure to the fields of Mex- 
ico, — " Washington, our homes, and our country ! " For, to 
omit other considerations, we have seen in this and the last 
chapter before it, that the wai*fare against the foreign foe is 
suicidal ; that the sword is two-edged, and cuts us as well as 
our enemies. The recoil of every blow struck abroad is 
upon some dear breast at our own fire-side, of father, bro- 
ther, son, lover, friend. The huzzas of every triumph have 
been reechoed by the groans and shrieks of wives, mothers, 
orphans, bereft, distracted, penniless, friendless. Into how 



WAR AND THE FIRE SIDE. 239 

many circles of the wise and good, the prosperous and power- 
ful, has the messenger of heavy tidings come ! Into how 
many lowly homes and cabin doors has the grim image 
stalked, and youth, and manhood, and age, bowed in speech- 
less agony at his coming ! The son of a Clay or a Webster 
has fallen by the side of the poor and obscure man's son. 
Tell us not of famine. There is no mutual strife, but the 
strife of self-sacrifice. Tell us not of cholera. There is no 
hand wet with a brother's blood, " smelling rank to heaven." 
But in both instances there is help rendered by the weak 
and sick to those weaker and sicker than themselves. There 
is the sharing of the last potato with the famishing. There 
is danger dared to give but a cup of medicine to the suffer- 
ing. There is heavenly pity bending with moist eye over 
the hungry she cannot feed, and over the sick she cannot 
cure. There is godHke charity, with folded hands and up- 
raised face, invoking that aid from God which man cannot 
yield. 

But it adds immeasurably to the patriotic compunction 
with which an American should look on this war, when we 
consider that, terrible as may have been the scenes of be- 
reavement, destitution, and distraction at our own fire-sides, 
and amid " the pleasant places," the beautiful abodes, of 
civilized and Christian life, we have been busy actors, as 
well as stricken sufferers. We have invaded the homes of 
another nation. We have smitten down young and old, 
man and woman, rich and poor, sick and well, in the relent- 
less conquest. Verily, we have been guilty in this matter, 
and our brother's blood cries against us from the ground 
where it has been spilled. The poor cot, the rich hacienda, 
the bishop's palace, the church of God, the halls of a repub- 
lic, have been entered, plundered, bombarded, burnt. In- 
deed, could a fallen spirit be imagined as hovering over 
Mexico in the character of its evil genius, and devising an 
extended system of wrong and suffering, a huge and com- 



240 THE VICES OF THE CAMP. 

plicated machine of exquisite, and multiplied, and far-reach- 
ing cruelties, one that should do the greatest possible evil 
Avith the least possible good ; one that should pierce the 
most hearts, tarnish the most honor, wring forth the most 
groans, darken the most hearths, and set a-going the most 
prolific causes of sin and wretchedness in every direction, 
and to the worst imaginable issues, then we should recognize 
with a shudder our own country as the evil genius of un- 
happy Mexico, and war as the infernal engine with which 
we have worked her nameless and numberless evils. And 
when, in addition to the essential evil of this instrument of 
woe, the evil genius be supposed artfully to veil its abomin- 
ations with the gorgeous drapery of the stars and stripes, 
and to seduce into its unholy service the flower of youth and 
the vigor of manhood, to operate at the engine's crushing 
wheels and dislocating pullies, the picture of that Briarean 
Inquisition we call war would be complete. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



THE VICES OF THE CAMP. 

" We have heard much of the corrupting tendency of some of the 
rites and customs of the heathen ; but what custom of the heathen 
nations had a greater effect in depraving the human character, than 
the custom of war." — Noah Worcester. 

" War produces the characters necessary for war. The camp is 
infectious. The few who go there virtuous, if they return at all, 
generally return vicious, and carry the infection into our peaceful 
hamlets and the bosom of families." — Wii>liam Ladd. 

Many of the battles of the Mexican war were fought 
wholly or partly on the Sabbath. At Monterey, Sacrar 



THE VICES OF THE CAMP. 241 

mento, Cerro Gordo, Cliapultepec, and Mexico, more or 
less of the fighting was done on the Lord's daj. While the 
assemblies of Christians, all over the earth, were met to- 
gether to hear the word of God, confess their sins, and seek 
the mercj of heaven through that name which is far "above 
every name that is named," then, in those hours of sacred 
rest, devotion, and brotherly love, the death-shots were fall- 
ing thick and fast, the storm of battle was sweeping with 
resistless fury over hundreds of the wounded and dying, and 
many souls cut off unprepared and in the midst of their 
days, appeared at the bar of a righteous God, to bear wit- 
ness against the w^ar-system of two professedly Christian 
nations. Could there be a more shocking contre-temps than a 
desperate, bloody battle, or siege, ou the holy day, Avhen 
God has said, "• Thou shalt not do any work," and all the 
noises of the earth should be hushed, and man should " be 
still and know that I am God ? " The only conceivable case 
is a fight on Christmas. The battle of Bracito Avas fought 
on the generally-received anniversary of that greatest era in 
the world's history, wdien angels from heaven sang the birth- 
anthem of the Saviour of men, " Glory to God in the high- 
est, and on earth peace, good will tow^ard men." 

But battles are not the only violations of the law of the 
Sabbath. Marchings, drills, all kinds of work, preparations 
for battle, or burying the dead, and all the bustle, din, and 
dissipation of a camp life, go on comparatively unchecked. 
In one word, there is no Sabbath to the wari'ior. Pie must 
work, or march, or fight on the day of rest just as much as 
on any other day, if his commander and circumstances re- 
quire it. Many of the greatest battles have been fought 
on that day, though historians have not cared to state the 
fact. Waterloo and Plattsburg occur to mind now among 
others. In a very few instances, generals have refused 
battle on the Sabbath, but the cases are rare. When men 
commit themselves to this murderous business, they gen- 
21 



242 THE VICES OP THE CAMP. 

erallj shut out God, and the thought of his laws, and their 
accountableness to him, from their mind, and know no re- 
ligion, no Sabbath, no mercy. The motto is, kill, kill ; 
plunder, plunder; burn, burn. Suppose two hostile ships 
meet on the sea on Sunday, what do the chaplains pray for ? 
Is it for love to God and love to man ? No ! but for death 
to destroy as many as possible of the other party ; for the 
fire, and powder, and bomb-shells, and sabres, that they do 
as much execution as possible in marring the image pf God, 
and hurrying mortals before their time to the bar of an 
eternal Judge. No single extensive cause has worked more 
efficiently to abolish the Sabbath, and bring it into dese- 
cration than war. All history unites in casting this sin at 
its door, and God will hold war-makers to account as so far 
Sabbath-breakers. 

We need not waste many words on the point that the 
vices of intemperance, profaneness, and licentiousness have 
a rank growth in war. The single key of explanation is, 
that the whole animal nature is called into action. The 
passions and appetites are supplied with unusual means of 
excitement. The moral restraints of home and surrounding 
society are taken off. The refuse of society congregate in 
the camp, and he must be a moral hero who is not soon 
laughed out of his virtuous scruples at any vice. The army 
has in it many good men, as the world goes, but their in- 
fluence is comparatively overpowered by the daring spirits 
of wickedness. 

Something has been done during the last twenty years 
to stay the ravages of intemperance^ but this war engenders 
habits of excess, and tends to reopen the flood-gates of deso- 
lation. For the recruiting and enlisting rendezvous has not 
unfrequently been a grog-shop. Rum has been the pre- 
siding genius of the mess-room and the camp. Rum has 
been the spirit of battle. Sutlers and retailers have throng- 
ed the encampments, and, in spite of the strictest commands 



THE VICES OF THE CAMP. 243 

of the officers, they have found way to appropriate the last 
cent of the poor soldier for a glass of rum. The disbanded 
soldiers will scatter anew through the length and breadth of 
the land the prolific seeds of intemperance. 

The violent passions and the reckless feelings enraged by 
war naturally find their vent in the most horrible profane- 
ness. This vice is as congenial to fleets and armies, as birds 
to the air, or fishes to the sea. It is spoken of in history as 
a wonderful^ triumph that Cromwell was able to banish it 
from his Puritan troops. But most generals have taken no 
pains, and had no desire to have the third commandment 
observed by their men ; indeed, as an almost universal rule, 
they have been themselves grossly addicted to this practice, 
which is neither "brave, polite, nor wise." From the camp, 
from the man-of-war, more curses than blessings, more oaths 
than prayers go up before high heaven. If you wish to 
initiate a young man in a short time into this soul-destroying 
habit, you could not do better than to send him to the battle- 
field, where human nature is wrought up to the highest 
pitch of maddened, defiant, ferocious, blood-thirsty passion 
(and must be so in order to do the awful work which is to 
be done there), and pours out volleys of profaneness against 
heaven while discharging volleys of death at heaven's chil- 
dren. He who wishes to see the doom of a profane and 
God-insulting people averted from his country, will hold up 
both hands to vote against war. 

Licentiousness is another vice which is diffused by war. 
The habits of the camp in this particular are too well known 
to need description. Indeed, multitudes flock to the stand- 
ard of war because they know that they shall thus find 
means to gratify their passions. A chaste army would be 
as novel a thing in the world as a sober one. The camp is 
the resort of hordes of abandoned females. 

When a besieged city is taken, it is sometimes the premium 
on the bravery of the soldiers to deliver it up to lust and 
plunder. 



244 THE VICES OF THE CAMP. 

Such is the licentiousness of war. The friend of purity 
will be the friend of peace. 

Indeed, when we consider the morals of war, — and the 
late war, as we have demonstrated in the preceding pages, 
has been not an exception, but the fulfilment of the general 
rule, — we would " wreak " our thoughts on some such words 
as these, O war, what shall we say of thee, thou dark 
spirit, thou fearful minister of wrath, thou flaming angel of 
swift destruction? When thou art let loose, there is a 
shudder in heaven, and the angels veil their faces in horror. 
The sound of thy trumpet strikes terror to the mother's 
heart, and makes the sister turn pale with fear and fore- 
boding. Wives shrink from the sound of thy coming, and 
children flee from the thunder and havoc of thy train as 
from the whii-lwind. Is there purity? Thou dishonorest 
it. Is there temperance? Thou debauchest it. Is there 
mercy ? Thou turnest it to stone. Is there love ? Thou 
curdlest the milk of human kindness to hatred. Is there 
prosperity ? Thou cuttest off" its resources, thou multipliest 
taxes. Is there home ? Thou layest it waste with fire and 
sword. Is there religion? Thou repealest every law of 
the decalogue, every precept of Christ. Is there patriot- 
ism ? Thou puttest in place of the true a vile substitute, 
current neither among gods nor men. Is there honor? 
Thou cheatest the world with a base compound, that bears 
the same relation to true honor that pewter coin does to 
pure silver. Is there freedom ? Thou draggest her a bound 
captive at thy chariot wheels. Is there commerce ? Thou 
chasest her from the seas. Is there agriculture? Thou 
tramplest her harvests under the hoofs of thy coursers, and 
riotest in her j^lenty. Is there art, practical or ideal ? Thou 
burnest her workshops, thou plunderest her galleries. Is 
there any good thing on earth, which heaven has given, or 
which man has made ? Thou art the curse and destruction 
of all. Where thou movest, a garden is before thee, and a 



THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OP CHRIST. 245 

desert behind thee. Thou art hell let loose upon the world ; 
and when we see thy banner in the sky, all the good angels 
of heaven seem to have taken flight, and left us to ourselves 
and to our own worst passions. Thine attendant spirits are 
pain, and woe, and despair, and sickness, and licentiousness, 
and intemperance, and profaneness, and Sabbath-breaking^ 
and murder, and robbery, and cruelty. Thy victories are 
the defeats of humanity. Thy conquests are the losses of 
liberty. Thy rejoicings are the wailings of the poor and 
suffering. Thy glories are the shame of immortals, and the 
trophies of tigers and hyenas. Thy laurels are red with 
blood, and thy hosannas are the shrieks of the wounded, the 
yells of the dying, the sobs of widows, the cries of orphans, 
and the lamentations of nations. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 

" The depravity occasioned by war is not confined to the army. 
Every species of vice gains ground in a nation during war. And 
when a war is brought to a close, seldom perhaps does a community 
return to its former standard of morals." — Noah Worcester. 

" "What distinguishes Avar is, not that man is slain, but that he is 
slain, spoiled, crushed by the cruelty, the injustice, the treachery, the 
murderous hand of man. The evil is moral evil. War is the concen- 
tration of all human crimes. Here is its distinguishing, accursed 
brand. Under its standard gather violence, malignity, rage, fraud, 
perfidy, rapacity, and lust."- - Channixg. 

We devote this chapter to what we regard as the chief 
evils of the Mexican war. The moral and spiritual facul- 

21* 



246 THE "WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 

ties are at the head of the human constitution, and the in- 
terests resulting from them and involving their development 
and welfare, are the leading interests of human society. 
Whatever reverses this order, and puts last what should be 
first, and first what should be last, destroys the true per- 
spective of human life. War, perhaps more than any other 
single cause, works this stupendous wrong. It discredits 
and dwarfs the moral man. It supplies undue excitements 
and gratifications to all the animal passions. It obscures 
the true end of our existence, and substitutes, in place of the 
honor and dignity of serving God and man, the gorgeous 
mockery of military glory. 

Had the war now in question been instrumental of the 
loss of not one dollar or one life, and yet had it laid waste 
the great moral and religious interests of the United States 
and Mexico, and left a deep wound upon the cause of Christ, 
we should assign it a foremost place among the foes of our 
laws, our liberties, and every social, material, and political 
interest. For every part of our complicated life is con- 
nected with every other part, as joint with joint, and limb 
with limb in the body. If one suffer, all the others suffer 
wdth it. When the moral interests of society are thrown 
into disorder, the evil extends through every department of 
thought and action. We have by an enumeration of separate 
evils demonstrated that, if every other argument failed, the 
immoralities of this invasion stamp it with the darkest colors 
of guilt, and cover it with the deepest abhorrence of the 
feeling heart and the tender conscience. We have examined 
its leger, and looked into its hospitals, and recited its hor- 
rors, but we will now consider its spirit. Space will compel 
us to be brief, where a volume only could do full justice to 
the subject. 

It is sometimes alleged, that those vv^ho fight have no 
enmity, one tov.ards another, and that it is not that they 
hate their enemies, or wish them evil ; but they contend at 



THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 247 

the call of their country, and are just as good friends when 
they stop firing as any men in the world. Witness, it is 
said, the kind acts they do each other, and the relief they 
give to the wounded and dying foeman. So be it. Let all 
possible palliations relieve the horrid picture of the field of 
blood. It does us good to think that what is best in man 
sometimes appears even amid such scenes. But we propose 
to record some indications of the war-spirit, and to show 
that where there is such a spirit, the spirit of revenge, liard- 
heartedness, cruelty, delight in the sufferings of others, or 
cold-blooded indifference to them, there cannot be the spirit 
of him, who said, " Love your enemies." And certainly 
we are not allowed to repeal his laws of love, mutual good 
will, intercessory prayers for our enemies, and returning 
them good for evil ; no, not even for an hour, though that 
hour be the period of battle. How then can war and Chris- 
tianity agree together? If it be possible to love our enemies 
at the moment we are pouring voUies of grape into their 
dense ranks, and to pray for them at the time we are medi- 
tating a chai'ge with naked bayonets, then we can conceive 
of a war conducted on Christian principles and sentiments, 
but not otherwise. " War must be," as Robert Hall says, 
" a temporary repeal of the principles of virtue." The truth 
is, that men cannot be brought up to tlie point of fighting 
except by the stress of most powerful motives, and those 
motives in general are drawn from the animal passions. 
Generals have usually deprecated a strong religious influ- 
ence in the camp.* Some have gone so far as to declare, 
the worse man, the better soldier. There is a species of 
morality in war, but it is of a very abject nature. Far are 
we from denying that there are many good men engaged in 

* The examining committee of the Military Academy at West Point 
state the significant fact in their report, 1849, that the chapter or sec- 
tion on War in Wayland's Moral Scienc;e, a text book in the institution, 
is not admitted in the course of studies ! 



248 THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 

the army and navy, but if there are such, it is in spite of the 
spirit of war, not in obedience to it. The better men, and 
the more comprehensive Christians they become, the more 
thoroughly will they abhor their calling, and say, with a 
British officer of high rank in the army to his associates, 
" ours is a damnable profession." 

The war-spirit of the press has given expression to senti- 
ments during the conflict like the following. We do not 
give the names of the papers and reviews, because our 
object is to illustrate a principle, not to attack persons. But 
we quote from highly-respected and widely-circulated jour- 
nals. 

These are the words of one : " Nothing but a complete 
subjugation of Mexico seems to answer the present emer- 
gency. Foraging on the enemy, and levying contributions 
were at last agreed upon. The anxiety in every man's 
countenance to-day is strongly depicted, and the universal 
cry is, war in earnest — war ; not for peace, but for conquest 
and subjugation, — a real bona jide war, which supports itself 
and seizes on the enemy's treasure. Unless we distress the 
Mexicans, carry destruction and loss of life to every fireside, 
and make them feel a rod of iron, they will not respect us." 

Another journal speaks thus ; " Under these circumstances, 
and in view of the perfidious conduct of the Mexican Gov- 
ernment, our Government is bound by every consideration 
of honor, duty and justice, to chastise them most effectually, 
and to beat them into a disposition to ask for peace, and to 
accept it on such terms as we may be disposed to grant 
them. 

" No more offers of peace, — no more paying for supplies, 
— no more confidence in the professions and promises of the 
enemy ; but stern, vigorous, relentless war, until our just de- 
mands are fully complied with. Such must and will be our 
policy now." 

Another gives utterance to the following ; " Our work of 



THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 249 

subjugation and conquest must go on rapidly with augmented 
forces, and, as far as possible, at the expense of Mexico 
herself. From Mexican contributions, levied and seized, if 
need be, bv the strong hand, our armies must now be sub- 
sisted and supported in the field. The policy of forbearance 
and conciliation, however magnanimously adopted by us, 
and in however generous an attitude it may have hitherto 
presented us before the world, is now exhausted. It has met 
with no response, but new rancor and contumely from our 
vanquished foe. Henceforth we must seek peace, and compel 
it, by inflicting upon our enemy all the evils of war." 

Another expatiates thus ; " With a nation like Mexico, 
with whom no accommodation can be hoped for, and as sad 
experience has shown, no faith in treaties, even when made, 
can be entertained, there can be no end to the war short of 
her annihilation as a nation. The matter should be taken in 
hand, in the spirit of Bonaparte's bulletins, in commencing 
the Prussian war: " The House of Brandenburgh has ceased 
to reign in Europe." His vigorous strokes ceased not until 
that edict was apparently accomplished, and a few weeks 
sufficed for the purpose. Of the same nature should be our 
proceedings. " The Spaniards have ceased to rule in 
Mexico," should be the motto, and corps after corps poured 
in at all quarters, until it is enacted." 

Another speculates after this wise ; " if Santa Anna still 
holds out, then we must take it for granted that the Mexican 
people want war to the knife ; and it will be time for our 
government to resort to the severest measures in order to 
make the war tell upon the population. It is to be hoped 
that our army will then forage on the enemy, lay every 
town and hamlet through which it passes under heavy con- 
tribution, and instead of suffering the wealthy citizens to 
depart and withdraw to the interior, retain them as hostages 
for keeping the peace." 

Still another exhorts to a military colonization ; " Let our 



2.">0 THE WAR-SPIRTT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 

armies begin immediately to radiate from the city of Mexico 
into all the Mexican States. And then, as a finishing stroke, 
our Government should give freely of the Mexican domain 
to as many of our citizens as would emigrate. This would 
soon fill up the country with armed Americans, who would 
complete not only the subjugation, but the civilization of 
Mexico." * 

" A manifest-destiny" editor holds forth thus ; " The 
glorious sierras and valleys of Mexico are fated to be linked 
to the mountains and prairies of the United States.* * * 
Politicians may connive, or quake and tremble as they will ; 
Wilmot Pi-ovisas, Abohtion, and Disruption of the Union 
are lost in the tremendous shout of the American people, 
Mexico must not, — shall not be abandoned ! * * Shall 
we resist Providence, that guides the course of nations ? * * 
A continent for freedom ; its boundary the icebergs on the 
north, the oceans east and west, and Central America, (until 
we need it,) on the south, and short of that boundary, no 
human power can stop the irresistible current of the Anglo 
Saxon i*ace." 

But the following atrocious sentences are almost too bad 
to copy, did they not illustrate a feeling but too prevalent, 
though sometimes expressed in more refined words. 

" We go for giving the Mexicans hell, whether Christ be 
our guide or not. We go for whipping them thoroughly, 
any way ; and we must do it, or stand disgraced in the eyes 
of the civilized world. None of your sentimentalism, — none 
of your " weary, wounded and worn" tales. If we had lis- 
tened to them in by-gone times, the star-spangled banner 
would not, as it now does, float in proud triumph over every 
sea." 

One more ; " We trust now that we shall hear no more of 
armistices or suspension of hostihties, at least from our side. 
War, vigorous, devastating, unrelenting war, is the only 
resource, and it is to be hoped that the Mexicans will be 
made to experience it." 



THE "WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OP CHRIST. 251 

A member of Congress said in his official seat ; " He 
trusted it would be a war of conquest ; he was not one of 
those who would have a mild war, who were afraid of strik- 
ing heavy blows. He would show no mercy till the war 
was ended. If he would have his own way, one blow should 
follow another without mercy." 

Says a Governor of a State, in my judgment, the motto, 
to ' conquer a peace/ is now made indispensable — there is 
no alternative. Then let the nation's power be summoned 
to a mighty effort, and let it break upon that devoted country, 
peal after peal, in one unceasing note of thunder. Let the 
public right arm be made bare, and the sword remain un- 
sheathed until peace is extorted." 

Let these suffice to exhibit the war-mania that seized 
upon a portion of the American press, and politicians. 
Must not such sentiments demoralize the public mind 
wherever circulated ? 

But we proceed to another point. Let us see what is the 
war-spirit of warriors, and how far it accords with the pre- 
cepts, spirit, and example of our beloved Redeemer in his 
sojourn on earth. Here, too, we avoid the invidiousness of 
giving names for an obvious reason. We attack a system, a 
custop, not individuals. Our aim is piinciples, not men. 
What are the most prominent ideas, which some men attach 
to such words as grand, brilliant, splendid, beautiful, glorious, 
etc., will appear in these extracts. We copy from official 
reports chiefly. The italics are ours. 

Says Lieut. , " Whilst this was being done, I galloped 

to the top of the hill above Arispa's mills, where a grand 
sight burst upon my view. The whole column (of the ene- 
my) was winding its way along the foot of the mountain 
and through the ravines, more than half the column being 
in range of my gun. I galloped back to bring it up, placed 
it in position and fired rapidly into their crowded ranks, pro- 
ducing considerable confusion, and much execution." 



252 THE WAK-SFIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 

This is the description of another at tlie terrible siege of 
Vera Cruz ; " In a few moments the steamers, Spitfire and 
Vixen, and five gunboats, the whole mider command of 

Captain of the navy, ran in close to the lime-kiln, and 

opened a beautiful fire with large Paixhan guns upon 
the town and castle. Nothing could have been done more 
handsomely.'' 

" Soon after our batteries opened, Captain with 

Major , stepped out to a rather exposed position to 

witness the effect of our shells. " Major," remarked Captain 
v., with enthusiasm, " as you pass the mortars, please tell 
the officers that the shell are doing their duty accurately'' 

Another officer writes as follows ; " The storming of 
Cerro Gordo was a magnificent spectacle, as well as one of 
the most hriUiant, if not the most brilliant feat ever accom- 
plished by American arms. IVhat a glorious feeling of ela- 
tion took possession of my soul at that, moment I I cannot 
describe it. Of the wounded, dead, and dying, we will not 
speak. I have seen Death robed in all his ghastly terrors, and 
feel that I am becoming indifferent to the sufferings of my 
fellows ; my profession demands it." 

Of an American Lieutenant, aged 72, a correspondent of 
the New York Post says, " he had left a home of afflu- 
ence and ease, with the expressed wish to die in the service 
of his country, and, if need be, on the field of battle. ' They 
cannot cheat me out of many more years,' said he. Wlien 
ordered with a battalion, like 2l forlorn ho^De, to the trying 
contest in the mountains, he exclaimed with a look of joy, as 
he drew his sword : ' Now, boys, this looks like doing some- 
thing.'" 

" I remained with him," says tlie surgeon attendant on the 

dying Maj. " all night. He had but little pain, and at 

intervals had some sleep. During the night he gave me 
many incidents of the battle, and spoke with much pride of 
the execution of his shot. He had but one thing to regret, 



THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 253 

and tliat was the small number of men at liis command." 
His only regret that he could not kill more Mexicans ! " The 

condition of the brave and esteemed Capt. " says an 

eye-Avitness, " is melancholy indeed. The whole of his lower 
jaw, with a part of his tongue and palate, is shot away by a 
grape-shot. He, however, survives, though entirely incapable 
of speech. He communicates liis thoughts by writing on a 
slate, and receives the necessary nutriment for the support 
of hfe with much difficulty. He does not desire to Uve, but 
converses with cheerfulness and exultation upon the success of 
our arms, and concluded an answer to some queries con- 
cerning the battle of the 9th, by writing, ' We gave the Mexi- 
cans hell!^^^ 

" When Lieut. , during the battle of Buena Vista, 

was sent by Gen. Taylor," says the New Orleans Bulletin, 
"with a flag to a detached body of 1000 to 1500 Mexicans, 

that were being cut to pieces by our fire. Col. was on 

the eve of charging them with his dragoons ; but as Lieut. 

was passing with his white flag displayed, rode 

out and crossed his path to inquire the object of his mission. 
'I am going to tell those fellows to surrender, in order to 
save their lives.' — ' Wait till I have charged them.' — * Im- 
possible ; the old man has sent me, and I must go.' — * But, 

my good fellow,' said entreatingly, 'for God's sake just 

rein up for five minutes, and give us a chance at them.' — 
< Would do any thing to oblige you. Colonel ; but I have the 
old man's orders, and there is no help for it.' And he gave 
rein to his horse, while the Colonel returned to the head of 
his regiment in the worst of all possible humors against the 
things called flags of truce." 

The diabohcal passion of fighting for the love of fighting 
is illustrated by this report of an American General, in the 
bombardment of a Mexican town, in which 219 were killed, 
and 300 wounded. 

"As we approached, several shots were fired at us, and, 
22 



254 THE "WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 

deeming it unsafe to risk a street fight in an unknown town 
at night, I ordered the artillery to be posted on a hill near 
the town and overlooking it, and open its fire. — Now ensued 
one of the most beautiful sights conceivable. Every gun was 
served with the utmost rapidity; and the crash of the walls 
and the roofs of the houses when struck by our shot and 
shell, was mingled with the roar of artillery. The bright 
light of the moon enabled us to direct our shots to the most 
thickly 2)opulated parts of the town^ 

At another action, in his report says another officer, now 
promoted to a generalship, " I camiot speak too highly of 
Capt. K. and his management of his batteries. His shells 
and shot fell beautifully upon houses and churches where the 
enemy were in great numbers. Whenever his shot took 
effect, the firing soon ceased." 

Such is the spirit of war and warriors,^ and such, from 
the necessity of the case, it ever must be. How totally in- 
consistent with the spirit of the New Testament ! Is it not 
a hidden art, even in this inventive age, to wage war upon 
Christian principles and sentiments ? Killing men, women, 
and children can hardly be done on the basis of loving our 
neighbors, or forgiving our enemies. The single question is, 
whether Christ be our supreme Master or not. AVhen that 
is settled, it will be comparatively easy to dispose of the ques- 
tion of war. 

* The many controversies and quarrels among the authors and advo- 
cates of this war and the officers of the army and navy strikingly illus- 
trate the combustible natm-e of the materials on which the war-system 
is built. Perhaps we ask too much of men, who cannot keep the peace 
among their own counti'ymen, that they should keep the peace with 
the rest of mankind. Witness the quasi wars of Scott vs. Trist, Pillow 
vs. Scott, Scott vs. Marcy, Kearney vs. Premont, Fremont vs. Mason, 
Benton vs Kearney, to say nothing of other controversies and duels. 



THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OP CHRIST. 255 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 

" War is in itself a mighty evil, an incongruity in a scheme of social 
harmony, a canker at the heart of improvement, a living lie in a Chris- 
tian land, a cm-se at all times." — London Times. 

It has already been shown by a detailed examination of 
separate items, that the late war has been totally inconsistent 
with the commands and spirit of the Gospel. But we treat 
now of its general spirit. It has been an appeal to might, 
and there is no evidence that the success of a battle is any 
proof of the justice of the cause of the victors. Napoleon 
once remarked, that he had always taken notice that Provi- 
dence favored the heavy battalions! Victory perches on the 
banner of might, not always on that of right. 

We have seen that even the usual laws of war, and laws 
of nations, have been rudely broken by the barbarities per- 
petrated on both sides; how much more then that perfect 
law of love, revealed by Jesus Chi-ist ! If the doctrines of 
Grotius and Vattel have been set at nought, how much more 
have those of Paul and John ? 

The inconsistency of our invasion of Mexico with the 
Christian faith has been brought into a stronger contrast, 
^from the fact, that at the very moment we were loading 
down a vessel of war to the very edge with bread-stuffs for 
the famishing Ii'ish, and despatching them on this mission of 
mercy, we were sending bomb-ships, laden with the most 
destructive imiDlements of war, to lay waste the cities of 
Mexico, and bury men, women, and children in the ruins of 



256 THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 

their dwellings and clinrclies. It is a serious inquiry for 
every Christian, whether, while we have thus been aiming 
fatal blows at the physical life of a sister republic, v/e may 
not have placed ourselves in the way of receiving the fruits 
of spiritual death in ourselves. 

"We can conceive of no line of antitheses more directly 
pitched, one against the other, than the qualities called into 
the most lusty life and growth by such a war, and those 
recommended and enforced in the instructions of our blessed 
Lord, and shining with a holy and beautiful light in his char- 
acter, " as the brightness of the firmament." It is ambition 
fronting meekness ; pride, lowliness of mind ; revenge, for- 
giveness ; retaliation, forbearance; cruelty, mercy; wrong, 
justice ; hate, love. " They," said Erasmus, " who defend 
war, must defend the dispositions which lead to it ; and these 
dispositions are absolutely forbidden by the Gospel." 

Mexico was weak, we were strong. Common magnanim- 
ity, much more that holy law that bids us " support the weak, 
and be patient towards all men," condemns the Onslaught of 
war. In private life, our blood boils with indignation to see 
the feeble beset and maltreated by the robust. Does the 
magnitude of scale alter the nature of the rule ? Speaking 
of those most immediately responsible for the war, Mr. Gal- 
latin says, in his widely-circulated pamphlet, "there is not 
one of them, who would not spurn with indignation the most 
remote hint that, on similar pretences to those alleged for 
dismembering Mexico, he might be capable of attempting to 
appropriate to liimself his neighbor's farm." But can the 
law of Clmstian honesty be so palpably violated in the 
smaller instance supposed, and does it receive no wound in 
the larger one ? 

It has been comj)lained of by the advocates of this war 
that the pulpit has generally been arrayed against it. The 
fact is probably true. The great mass of the clergy of every 
denomination have uttered their condemnation of the war. 



THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 257 

They have preached and prayed against it. Indeed they 
have felt that no prayer or song could be made out of the 
subject, except in distinct and decided opposition to carrying 
our arms beyond the boundaries of our enormous territory 
into those of a weak and distracted neighbor. The eccle- 
siastical bodies of this country, with scarcely an exception 
in the free States, have come out in votes and resolutions of 
the most stringent condemnation of the war.* These facts 
may show how utterly they have deemed it to be opposed to 
the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and may by some be regarded 
as an intimation, though by no means a proof, that such was 
the reality. 

But, in marked contrast with the above, we record as 
exemplifications of the fatal, corrupting influence of the war- 
miasma, the cases of some even of the ministers of Christ, 
who entered the army, and who preached and prayed in 
favor of the war. A private letter from a Lieutenant in 
the service, says ; " We have here among the volunteers a 
preacher who is a captain, his officers and non-commissioned 
officers are deacons of his church ; and the privates mem- 
bers. He is called the fighting Preacher. He and his com- 
pany are from ." 

We have already mentioned that a preacher was killed in 
the ranks in the battle of Buena Vista. 

Sermons, which are now before us, were preached both 
on the Rio Grande, and at the city of Mexico before the 
troops, justifying the war, talking largely of the "Anglo 
Saxon destiny," comparing the progress of the American 
arms with the entrance of the children of Israel into the land 
of Canaan, and giving the sanctions and benedictions of Chris- 
tianity to the awful wrongs and barbarities of one of the 
most cruel, sanguinary, and demoralizing wars on record. 

* Advocate of Peace, Nov. and Dec. 1847, pp. 134 — 137. Feb. 1848, 
pp. 166, 167. Oct. 184S. pp. 274 — 276. * 

22* 



258 THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 

But we need not say that this surely is no period of the 
world for true Christians to justify war, and especially wars 
of aggrandizement, retaliation, and slavery. When could 
the Mexican invasion assume a more hideous aspect in the 
eyes of good men, than at a time when the missionaries of 
the cross are penetrating to the remotest parts of the earth 
on their glorious errand of evangelizing the heathen ; * and 
when even Mohammedan powers, the Sultan of Turkey, the 
Shah of Persia, the Imaum of Muscat, and the Arabian 
chiefs — have either abolished slavery, or very much re- 
stricted it ; and when there seems to be a universal move- 
ment in the world towards a happier age of Freedom, Peace, 
and Philanthrof)y. Thus the spirit of the age rebukes and 
condemns our war. For into that spirit has entered, we 
believe, some faint portion of '• the mind that was in Christ." 
Surely this of all periods, since the world began, is not the 
day to exact " the pound of flesh next the heart " with a 
Shylock greediness, nor to resent injuries with a hasty 
revenge, nor to fight for glory, territory, or opjDression. Let 
us hope that our countrymen will yet come to their senses, 
and frown upon a spirit and a career so utterly at variance 
with the holy religion we profess, and check any symptoms 
of a renewal of wars of invasion, conquest, and slavery. 

* A Chinese emperor once said : " Wherever Christians go they 
whiten the soil with human bones ; and I will not have Christianity in 
my empire." 

A Turk at Jerusalem once said to Wolff, the missionary, "Why do 
you come to us ? " The missionary replied, " to bring you peace." 
" Peace ! " replied the Turk, leading him to a window, and pointing to 
Mount Calvary, " there ! upon the very spot where your Lord poured 
out his blood, the Mohammedan is obliged to interfere to prevent Chris- 
tians from shedding the blood of each other ! " — Calumet, of Peace. 



LESSONS OP THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 259 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 

" Our sole aim being to promote the cause of permanent peace by- 
turning tliis war into effectual warnings against resorts to the sword 
hereafter." — Proposals for a Review of the War by the 
American Peace Society. 

A BRIEF survey of some of the more prominent lessons, 
taught us by the events of the last two years, is all that can 
be given now, though the future will no doubt teach us far 
more upon this subject than the past. 

The friends of peace had fondly cherished the hope that 
'pure republics, the governments of the many as contradis- 
tinguished from monarchies and aristocracies, the govern- 
ments of the one, or the few, would be pacific. War has 
been charged upon rulers, though it has been confessed it 

" Is a game, which, were their subjects wise, 
Kings would not play at." 

But we are disappointed. We see that republics can wage 
as fierce, brutal, and unjust wars, as feudal and despotic 
powers.* The mania of conquest may riot in the veins of a 
democracy as furiously as in those of a kingdom or empire. 

* Witness republican France, waging a cruel war against republican 
Eome to restore the Pope ! The example of our wickedness will find 
in future history but too many imitators. Such cases need not in the 
least shake our faith in republicanism ; but they should convince us of 
the necessity, if we would have a true republicanism, of compounding 
with it large admixtures of sound education, pure religion, and the 
spirit of nniversfil brotberhoorl. 



260 LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 

In this respect we witness the non-fulfihnent of many wise 
predictions and cherished hopes. The very independence 
and self-reliance taught by free institutions make the repub- 
lican the most formidable soldier on earth, when he cuts 
loose from the scruples of a religious education. The state- 
rivalry and panting for distinction by the members of differ- 
ent sections of the Union have also blown up the war-passion 
to a hotter flame, and made the battle-field an arena for the 
most intense competition. 

The Mexican war has accordingly taught us not to trust 
to political institutions alone, however free and admirable, 
for the maintenance of pacific relations among mankind. We 
must strike a higher key. "SYe must aj^peal to deeper motives. 
Men may know their rights in a republic, and still be igno- 
rant of their duties. They may know their duties, and not 
discharge them. They may have a morbid jealousy of 
tyranny over themselves, and yet play the tyrant over others. 
We would bring no railing accusation against our o^vn, our 
native land. Heaven bless it, every acre and rood ! But 
because we love it, and would ever rejoice in its unsullied 
honor and Christian fame, we deeply, deploringly remonstrate 
against the spirit of political propagandism. If we have so far 
lost sight of the nature of free institutions, and the true mis- 
sion of the United States, as to propose to offer. Mohammed- 
like, the alternative of freedom in one hand, and the sword 
in the other, to the other nations of the earth, the sooner our 
days are numbered and finished, the happier for the peace 
of the world. We say thus much, not to give " aid or com- 
fort" to any enemy of liberty and the institutions in which 
liberty is organized, but to " point the moral " of the late 
war. It is not that we love our country less, but mankind 
more. It is not that we would be any the less devoted 
patriots, but that we would sanctify and dignify that charac- 
ter by being the more devoted philanthropists and disciples 
of Christ. 



LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 261 

And, in general, we have been taught by this war how 
broken a reed we lean upon, when we propose to accomplish 
the magnificent result of a general, permanent peace by any 
temporal expedients, any carnal weapons, any industrial, social, 
political, commercial, or selfish arrangements. Satan cannot 
cast out Satan, nor can even selfishness itself exorcise the 
demoniac spirit of wai\ Men will hardly give up the grati- 
fication of their lusts, though they could turn a penny by it. 
Yea, we see that they will, under the instigation of the strong 
and animal passions, fling every consideration of interest, 
honest reputation, consistency, and safety to the winds, and 
embark in a crusade against which their pockets, their love 
of life, and every apparent interest cry out. But wars and 
fightings come from a different part of the human constitution 
than the calculating faculties. A whole boiling cauldi'on of 
ambition, excitement, pleasure, revenge, sympathetic ardor, 
is in the breast of the volunteer. He cannot be controlled 
except by principles and sentiments mightier than those that 
have usurped the dominion over his reason and conscience. 
But " where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty ; " 
liberty from those unsanctified lusts and passions of the 
human heart, out of which all the terrible deeds of war 
come, as streams of burning lava from the volcano. The 
motives that are to emancipate even the freest and most 
refined nations from enacting the appalling tragedy of the 
battle-field, must descend from a higher plane than the leger, 
the statute-book, and the laws and interests of conventional 
life. God must thunder and lighten out of heaven. Jesus 
must spread out his arms in the agony of the cross, as if to 
draw all men to their spiritual unity and head. Man's rela- 
tion to man, as a brother, owning equal rights, and bound by 
equal duties, must be revealed in its full solemnity and ten- 
derness. Then, and not till then, can we hope to see this 
foul spirit cast out, from the hearts even of good men, much 
less out of the sensual mind. We welcome with delight 



262 LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 

every new tie uniting distant lands in the intercourse of com- 
merce, science, and a material civilization. All hail to the 
press, the steamboat, the railroad, and the telegraph, as 
connecting men together more and more, not by links of 
iron only, but by cords of love. But the causes of war are too 
inveterate to be cured by any thing short of the miraculous 
touch of the Son of God. He is the Prince of Peace. He, 
and he only, can say to a warring world, as he once said to 
the raging deep, " Peace, be still," and the winds and waves 
obeyed him. Thanks be accorded to all who are laboring 
for human improvement in every direction, and by every 
instrument, for they are co-laborers with the advocates of 
the uninterrupted brotherhood of nations. 

But chiefly as Christianity pervades the mass of mankind 
in its life-giving spirit and efficacy, will men awake to the 
unutterable wickedness of war, and learn its horrid arts no 
more. Civilization itself is no adequate remedy; but civili- 
zation, after the Christian type, and uplifted and empowered 
with Christian ideas, will outgrow war. It has outgrown 
many barbarous notions and customs, — the ordeal, torture, 
persecution, superstition, — of earlier ages ; and it is only a 
question of time and faithful effort, when this great embodi- 
ment of barbarism shall drop off from the expanding limbs 
of Freedom, on which it has so long hung as a hideous and 
monstrous excrescence. 

Another lesson from these hostilities is, that what are called 
the improvements of warfare are poor pretexts to justify its 
continuance. Commend us not to war as a thing which is 
very susceptible of improvement. The devil cannot be dis- 
guised, though he be clothed in a suit of broadcloth, and 
have a musket and canteen, instead of a bow and arrows. 
He is still the devil. He was a murderer from the begin- 
ning, and he will be a murderer to the end. He will make 
children orphans, and wives widows, and parents childless. 
He may use different tools, the bomb instead of the batter- 



LESSOI^S OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 263 

ing-ram, the rifle instead of the cross-bow, and the cannon 
instead of the scythed chariot ; but the devil is the devil 
yet, and war is war. It cannot be smoothed, civilized, or 
evangelized. Much assurance indeed was given, that the 
late contest should be conducted on humane and just princi- 
ples, so far as such a hellish work could be thus carried on. 
But the fulfilment of these fine promises must be looked for 
among the legitimate and illegitimate barbarities perpetrated. 
If large masses of men are trained to kill in the most dex- 
terous and scientific modes at the behest of their superiors, it 
cannot be thought very strange if they sometimes do a Uttle 
murdering on their own private account. If they are led 
forth to conquest with their passions stimulated to the utmost 
with the visions of national glory and aggrandizement, it 
were natural and pardonable, perhaps, that they should pilfer 
a trifle on their own hook, in view of the sj^lendid example 
held up perpetually to view. Such has been the fact. Plun- 
dering, massacres, cruelties, the killing of the wounded on 
the field of battle, and even in some cases burning aUve at 
the stake, have been recorded on the highest official author- 
ity, as a part of the history of the Mexican war. Two free 
Christian nations, in the nineteenth century, going to war 
with one another, and in that war witnessing and perpetrat- 
ing barbarities that would disgrace New Zealand ! Away 
with the idle pretence, that war can ever be any thing else 
than barbarous, sanguinary, cruel, and full of all manner of 
evil ! Let not those who uphold it as the true method of 
settling international disputes, encourage the idea that it ever 
can be, from the very nature of the case, any thing else but 
violence, fraud, murder, and a temporary repeal of every 
commandment of the King of kings. If we are to have war, 
let us call it war, nor seek to baptize it in any other Chris- 
tian title or surname. " Woe unto them that call evil good, 
and good evil ; that put darkness for light, and light for dark- 
ness ; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter !" 



264 LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 

We see another proof in this contest of the essential injus- 
tice of all icar. As a mode of redressing injuries, it is per- 
fectly absurd, for it creates a thousand injuries and wrongs 
where it redresses one. It runs posterity into debt without 
their consent, and mortgages the industry and capital of 
future ages. Instead of punishing the guilty, it often visits 
the innocent with its heaviest calamities. The battle-field 
is not entitled in any sense to be regarded as a solemn tri- 
bunal of justice. The very notion of a battle is, that men 
temporarily lay aside all that they had gained by thou- 
sands of years of civilizing and Christian processes, re- 
solve themselves into savages, and appeal from right, from 
reason, from the exercise of all those nobler faculties of our 
constitution, that had been predominant in peace, to the 
coarse, rude, and vindictive passions. The greatest of the 
poets di'ew it all to the life ; — 

" In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man 
As modest stillness and humility ; 
But when the blast of war blows in our ears, 
Then imitate the action of the tiger ; 
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, 
Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage 5 
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect ; 
Let it pry through the portage of the head, 
Like the brass cannon ; let the brow o'erwhclni it, 
As fearfully as doth a galled rock 
O'erhang and jutty his confounded ba^ic. 
Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean ; 
Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostrils wide , 
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit 
To his full height." 

Our actions will, of course, partake of the nature of those 
passions or feelings which are uppermost at the time we 
act. If then the deeds of war are performed under the 
powerful stress of the animal nature, they must of necessity 
be of like color and character, " earthly, sensual, devilish." 



LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 265 

And by what alembic a long career, a campaign, or several 
campaigns of such actions are to be sublimated into justice, 
and wrong to be righted, and evils to be cured, and injuries 
to be placated, is more than we have been yet able to 
discover. Such temporary returns to the brutal age of the 
world inflict deep wounds upon a Christian state of society ; 
for they are a virtual renouncement for the time being of the 
reign of truth and justice, and they cast discredit and dis- 
couragement upon all the moral and religious instrumen- 
talities by which society is drawn up from the slough of sen- 
sual customs and habits into the light and life of civilization. 

The Mexican war was, as we have seen, a signal example 
of this resorting to might instead of right, and employing the 
strong arm of force to compel the surrender of a part of 
another country. It was a compound of the crime of the 
highway-man, who puts his pistol at your head, and cries, 
" Deliver, or die," and the truckling of the pedlar who trades 
in small wares, and chuckles over his hard-driven bargain 
after it is made. Never was there a finer opportunity for 
what might be called national magnanimity, than for the 
stronger power in this case to bear and forbear with the 
weaker one, and aid, not thwart it, in carrying out the ex- 
periment of republican institutions. 

A score of names, perhaps, in the whole range of history, 
have been accounted, called great. But who are they ? 
How poor are all the results they left on earth compared 
with his who repressed the ignoble strife of his followers, 
who should be greatest. They were from below, he was 
from above. Some good men have attained the title, an 
Alfred, a Peter, a Charlemagne ; but most have been great 
in crime and blood ; an Alexander, a Pompey, a C^Esar, a 
Herod, a Louis, a Henry, a Frederic, a Charles, a Buona- 
parte. They were great in many things ; great, perhaps, in 
ability, great in resolution of will, great in means of influ- 
ence, and striking in their results ; but little in the elements 

23 



266 LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 

of a truiY great cliaracter ; little in honesty, in truth, in love, 
mean, seftish, crafty, cruel, and implacable. They have been 
willing to sacrifice any amount of human life or happiness, 
to secure their end, and be accounted the greatest. But 
how poor the honor, how blood-stained the glory ! How 
many death-pangs it has taken to refine their thrill of plea- 
sure, how many tears to water their garlands of victoiy, how 
much human gore to dye their purple robes of royalty ! 
Wliat curses have loaded their names on earth, what awful 
memories must haunt them in the world of spirits ! 

We want no more such great ones. "We have had enough 
of them. We want the truly great, the truly good. And if 
we would have such from among our youth, we must fill 
their heads and hearts not with pagan, or Mohammedan, but 
with Christian ideas and sentiments. We must baptize our 
children not only into the name of Christ, but also into his 
spirit. We must show them how much greater in reality 
Jesus, the well-beloved of the Father, was in washing his 
disciples' feet, than Xerxes riding forth at the head of his 
army to lay waste the fairest countries with fire and sword ; 
Jesus dying in ignominy on the cross, than Caesar making his 
triumphal procession into Rome with the spoils and captives 
of vanquished kingdoms. 

This strife has repeated, in fresh and distinct tones, this 
lesson of the perverted standard of judgment created by war. 
We see how poor a thing is mere animal courage, and mar- 
tial fame. We see that the most brilliant deeds of the 
soldier, (sold-ier, the man v^ho is sold), are of such a charac- 
ter that, were they done by any other profession, the actors 
would be convicted and punished as the highest offenders 
against the peace, and order, and rights of men. What right 
can man claim thus to invent a system of war-morality, war- 
honor, war-reputation, which conflicts at every point with the 
government of the Most High ? 

The truq. nature of much that passes current in society as 



LESSONS OP THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 267 

heroism of the highest kind, when *exhibited in war, is so 
well exposed by a modern writer, Dr. Bushnell, that we 
need not apologize for repeating his distinction between 
" bravery " and " courage." * 

" No, the true hero is the great, wise man of duty, — he 
whose soul is armed by truth and supported by the smile of 
God, — he who meets life's perils with a cautious but tran- 
quil spirit, gathers strength by facing its storms, and dies, if 
he is called to die, as a Christian victor, at the post of duty. 
And if we must have heroes, and wars wherein to make 
them, there is no so brilliant war as a war with wrong, no 
hero so fit to be sung as he who has gained the bloodless 
victory of truth and mercy. 

" But if bravery be not the same as courage, still it is a 
very imposing and plausible counterfeit. The man himself 
is told, after the occasion is past, how heroically he bore him- 
self, and when once his nerves have become tranquillized, he 
begins even to believe it. And since we cannot stay con- 
tent in the dull, uninspired world of economy and work, we 
are as ready to see a hero as he to be one. Nay, we must 
have our heroes, as I just said, and we are ready to harness 
ourselves, by the million, to any man who will let us fight 
him out the name. Thus we find out occasions for war, — 
wrongs to be redressed, revenges to be taken, such as we 
may feign inspiration and play the great heart under. We 
collect armies, and dress up leaders in gold and high colors, 
meaning, by the brave look, to inspire some notion of a hero 
beforehand. Then we set the men in phalanxes and squad- 
rons, where the personality itself is taken away, and a vast 
impersonal person, called an army, a magnanimous and 
brave monster, is all that remains. The masses of fierce 
color, the ghtter of steel, the dancing plumes, the waving 
flags, the deep throb of the music hfting every foot, — under 

* Phi Beta Oration at Cambridge, 1848, pp. 21, 22. 



268 LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 

these the living acres of men, possessed bj the one thought 
of playing brave to-dav, are rolled on to battle. Thunder, 
fire, dust, blood, groans, — what of these ? — nobody thinks 
of these, for nobody dares to think till the day is over, and 
then the world rejoices to behold a new batch of heroes ! 
" And this is the Devil's play that we call war." 
And, finally, w^e have been startled by this wild crusade 
into a new conviction of the vast latent tvar-spint of our 
country and of the world, and the necessity of more untiring 
and devoted labors, and more comprehensive plans to carry 
the peace enterprize to a triumphant conclusion. We be- 
lieve in the true mission or destiny of our nation to illustrate 
the idea of Freedom and a Christian State. But if we dis- 
own the glorious career, God is not so poor that he has not 
other nations and races which he can employ for purposes 
equally grand and beneficent. We may hug the delusive 
phantom that we are a species of Israel among other people, 
but let us not forget that Israel did not escape the fiery 
furnace of punishment and retribution for all their trans- 
gressions and backslidings. 

And, as we refiect upon the work to be done to guide this 
giant republic on a safe and peaceful career, we ask who is 
sufficient for these things ? Oh, for parents of peace, who 
will make their well-ordered families so many living peace 
societies ! Oh, for Christian teachers, who will early train 
the tender minds under their care to govern those passions 
whence wars and fightings come ! Oh, for Christian histo- 
rians, who will write the dark register of crime and cruelty 
Avith a melting heart, and a righteous, wholesome indig- 
nation, and warn w hile they instruct ! Oh, for statesmen of 
peace, who will feel that they are amenable to God more 
than man, to Christ than to country, and that every war is a 
stab at the very existence of civil society, a reversal of civil- 
ization, a suicide of the republic ! Oh, for Gospel ministers, 
who will proclaim the whole counsel of God on this subject, 



SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 269 

and from the commanding station of the pulpit, with the 
meek wisdom of their master, win all men to " study the 
things that make for peace ! " 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 

" In thirty-one days the natural results of this system of peace and 
fraternity have been more valuable to the cause of France and of 
hberty and of Poland herself, than ten battles with torrents of blood." 

Lamartine. 

" Por wliat can war but endless war still breed "?" 

Milton. 

We have already argued at length on the beginning and 
ending of the war, as instructive and striking lessons of 
peace. In continuation and expansion of the same idea, in 
a little different direction, we would take up the means of 
preventing war by negotiation, arbitration, congress of na- 
tions, or some other metliod. Surely such an infernal system 
ought not to go on without the wisest counsels, and the most 
strenuous efforts of all Christians, patriots, and philanthro- 
pists to arrest it. " Shall the sword devour forever ?" We 
believe not. We have full faith, that there is latent abhor- 
rence enough against v/ar in Christendom to sheathe the 
sword, were it given utterance, and positive, practical appli- 
cation. There is an amount of sleeping indignation and 
opposition, so to say, in the minds of the Christian men and 
women in America, were it called forth, organized, and put 
into execution, to sweep the accursed institution among our- 
selves into eternal oblivion. But hitherto there have not 

23* 



^70 SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 

been sufficient decision and action on the subject. We have 
tampered and played and compromised with the evil. We 
have perhaps unconsciously and unintentionally, but actually, 
nursed the war-passion in the tender minds of our children 
and youth. Our great institutions of army, navy, militia, 
arsenals, naval and military schools, have done much to 
"educate the heart of the people for war." We have gloried 
in the past wars of our young republic, and promoted their 
heroes to the most brilliant posts of honor and emolument 
at home and abroad. 

The subject of Peace and War, therefore, comes as 
surely under the law of cause and effect, as that of any 
other in the material or moral world. The causes and 
means of Peace, if properly and faithfully employed, would 
eventually result in peace, just as tlie causes and means 
of War have resulted in war. With a peace-education, a 
peace-literature, a true, and not a counterfeit " peace-estab- 
lishment," a peace-administration of the general government, 
and shall we not say in view of some facts which have been 
stated in this essay, a peace-religion, the relations of the 
United States with every other government would be con- 
solidated on a pacific basis, which nothing would be able to 
shake. And to the furtherance and ultimate carrying out of 
these peaceful influences on the part of society at large, two or 
three additional ideas should be incorporated into the per- 
manent law of nations. 

1. Mediation and ArUtration. These instruments of avert- 
ing war, settling international questions, or putting an end to 
hostilities, have been often employed of late, and oftener as 
the relations of nations to one another have been seen more 
in a Christian light, and as falling, hke the relations of in- 
dividuals one to another, under all the solemn and binding 
sanctions of the law of God. 

Thus, in the very matter of these difficulties between 
Mexico and Texas and the United States, we have no less 



SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 271 

than three instances of the friendly offices of other govern- 
ments, and in two of them the result was partially or wholly 
successful, and promoting a good understanding. 

In adjusting the claims for Mexican spoliations, 1840- — 
1842, a Prussian umpire was employed to decide between 
the Mexican and American commissioners. 

In 1845, through the intervention of Great Britain and 
France, Mexico consented to acknowledge the independence 
of Texas, " provided she would stipulate not to annex her- 
self or become subject to any country whatever." That 
provision was not however fulfilled. 

In 1846, Great Britain ojffered her mediation both to 
Mexico and the United States, to effect a treaty of peace, 
but by both powers it was either declined, or neglected. 
But were there a proper spirit prevailing among the high 
officers of Cliristian governments, and were they sustained 
by the good sense and forbearance of the people, it would 
be held to be no more derogatory for two nations to accept 
the intervention of a third power to effect a peace, or to 
prevent war, or to submit their disputes to a friendly arbi- 
tration, than it is for individuals to do the same or simi- 
lar things in their private transactions. Unfortunately 
however, the sensitivness of national honor is such, that it 
often refuses, after the duelist's example, to be satisfied with 
any thing short of human blood. Were the great mass of the 
population in any civiUzed country brought to see and un- 
derstand the miseries, losses, and sins of war, they would 
sustain their rulers by the omnipotence of public opinion in 
any honest measures that would avert such an inundation of 
evils. How much more truly honorable in the sight of God 
and the nations would it have been, to submit our questions 
with Mexico to a board of impartial referees, or to accept 
the mediatorial offices of friendly powers to stay the rivers 
of blood ! He who in private life is bent upon going to law 
with his neighbor, and rejects the proffers of conciliation, 



272 SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 

is thought to be governed by sinister motives of revenge, 
apprehension of the badness of his cause, or of the results 
of an unbiassed examination. May not a like unfavorable 
construction be put upon the conduct of the nation that scorns 
pacific measures, and strides on to its work of blood, deaf to the 
entreaties, and amicable remonstrances of other powers ? 

The best method to insure arbitration in all cases of diffi- 
culty, is to insert in every treaty an article binding both 
parties to adopt that mode of adjusting boundaries, claims, 
and all questions. JNIr. Roberts, first President of the RepubUc 
of Liberia, stated at the Peace Congress in Brussels, Sept. 
1848, that " he had caused to be inserted in treaties, made 
with many of the African tribes, a clause, binding the parties 
to refer their difficulties to arbitration, and had thus suc- 
ceeded in preventing war from breaking out between those 
savage tribes for ten years. If the measure were practica- 
ble among such populations, whose ruling passion was war, 
what might it not do for peace, if adopted by civilized and 
Christian nations ? '* 

There are many reasons why nations should settle their 
disputes by legal forms, rather than by the uncertain chances 
of the battle-field. It is done by individuals and in corpora- 
tions, and in our Union by the several States, and were it 
done by nations the change from barbarism to law would be 
completed. Then the chances of justice being fulfilled would 
be multiplied. The innocent would not be involved with 
the guilty in the horrid sufferings of war. Vast sums of 
money would be saved. The unspeakable disgrace and 
wickedness of nominally Christian nations engaged in cut- 
ting one another's throats on some punctilio of claim or 
ceremony, would be averted. It is to be hoped that every 
future treaty contracted by the United States and the Euro- 
pean nations will contain a specific provision for arbitration, 
like the follovv'ing one in the Treaty with Mexico. 

*Advof.ate of reaee, vol. viii.. p. --97. 



SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 273 



ARTICLE XXI. 



" If unhappily any disagreement should hereafter arise be- 
tween the governments of the two repubhcs, whether with 
respect to the interpretation of any stipulation in this treaty, 
or with respect to any other particular concerning the pohti- 
cal or commercial relations of the two nations, the said 
governments in the name of those nations, do promise to 
each other that they will endeavor, in the most sincere and 
earnest manner, to settle the difference so arising, and to pre- 
serve the state of peace and friendship in which the two 
countries are now placing themselves ; using, for this end, 
mutual representations, and pacific negotiations. And if, 
by these means, they should not be enabled to come to an 
agreement, a resort shall not, on this account, be had to re- 
prisals, aggression, or hostility of any kind, by the one 
repubhc against the other, until the government of that 
which deems itself aggrieved shall have maturely considered, 
in the spirit of peace and good neighborship, whether it 
would not be better that such difference should be settled by 
the arbitration of conmiissioners appointed on each side, or 
by that of a friendly nation. And should such course be 
proposed by either party, it shall be acceded to by the other, 
unless deemed by it altogether incompatible with the nature 
of the difference, or the circumstances of the case." 

The next Article in the Treaty is an attempt, as has been 
said, to bind the parties, if they should again fight, (" which 
is not to be expected, and which God forbid !") to make war 
on Christian principles ! 

And let it not be here said, that nations must be left to 
manage their own concerns for themselves, and that it is the 
business of no third party to say how they shall settle their 
quarrels. On the contrary, it does very much concern every 
nation that every other nation be at peace. It is the busi- 



274 SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 

ness, very properly and necessarily the business of every 
nation, that its neighbors be not embroiled in sanguinary 
conflicts on shore, spoliations ujDon one another's commerce 
on the sea, nor that they should in any way interrupt the 
great channels of human intercourse, trade, and improve- 
ment. There may at particular periods be partial benefits, 
arising from war among their neighbors, to neutral powers ; 
but in general it is the deranger of commerce, the embroiler 
of international connections beyond the parties directly in- 
volved, the signal to confusion and every evil work through 
the world. The war-trumpet blows discord into the ear 
of listening nations. A slight contest between inconsiderable 
powers has sometimes in history brought on that awful era 
in human events, called " a general war." Much responsi- 
bility rests upon those who first break the peace in the 
family of nations. And from such considerations it is plainly 
the interest and duty of neutral nations to use their good 
ofl&ces to restore peace between the belligerents. On every 
ground, too, of humanity and Christianity, it is imperative 
that democracies of all governments should cordially wel- 
come the amiable intervention of others to heal their 
discords ; for war is the enemy of the people, the enemy of 
liberty, the certain subverter of most of the benefits pro- 
posed by free institutions. History is full of warnings upon 
this subject, and if we are not deaf as adders, we shall 
hearken to the solemn voice that issues from the grave of 
departed republics. 

2. Congress of Nations. But mediation or arbitration, val- 
uable as it may be and has been, is not sufficiently systematic 
and general, to contribute very effectually to extinguish the 
firebrands of war. We have just had mournful evidence that 
some more efficacious instrument is demanded for the pacifi- 
cation even of Christian republics and near neighbors. 

The most' satisfactory plan which has yet been suggested 
is that of a Congress of Nations ; or a Congress and a 



SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 275 

Court of Nations, one as the preliminary and legislative 
body, and the other as the judicial and executive one ; the 
one to enact rules, and the other to judge eases, and carry its 
decisions into 'effect. Many objections have been raised 
against this, and every other project of perpetual pacification 
among the nations, but they are in general founded either 
on a misconception of the plan proposed, or on the old no- 
tion, that what has been, must be. If an august body should 
meet, of the wisest and best men, venerable for age and ser- 
vices, experienced in all matters of a legal, judicial, political 
and moral character, elevated far above the aims of a selfish 
ambition, consulting with a large vision not for any narrow 
sectional interest of one or a few, but for the welfare of the 
world, it would be a spectacle in itself to command the uni- 
versal admiration, homage and obedience of mankind. This 
object would be as sublime as it would be beneficent, to 
pacificate a warring world, to staunch the bleeding wounds 
of kingdoms, to actualize the prophetic and millennial age, 
and establish in steadfast loyalty the undisputed reign of 
the Prince of Peace. 

The details of such a world-Congress, or Court, one or 
both, would of course require more discussion than can be 
given to them in this review. They will be found, however, 
at length in the Prize Essays on a Congress of nations, pub- 
lished by the American Peace Society, and in a compiled 
Essay on the same subject by the late distinguished philan- 
thropist, William Ladd. We only insert the subject here 
in connection with another frightful chapter in our history, 
that speaks in thunder-tones of the need of such an institu- 
tion, or some one like it, to avert these wholesale murders. 
When a new idea is first broken to the mind, there is apt to 
be some revulsion from it as being novel, extravagant, and 
aggressive upon our previous views. But the longer it is 
entertained, if it be true and valuable, the more fully do we 
become convinced that all truth is harmonious, safe, and pro- 



276 SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 

fitable ; and that precisely what the nations are perishing 
for, is lack of knowledge ; that what the " whole creation 
groaneth and travaileth" for, is the faithful application of 
the truths of Christ to the wants of human society, in all 
public affairs as well as in private conduct and to the in- 
dividual heart. The word of God is no mere fine theory, 
but the eternal verity, deeper than the sea, higher than the 
heavens, of these momentous interests of man living with 
man, and nation with nation ; " neither is there salvation in 
any other." 

But most thoroughly are we persuaded that there is 
nothing in the plan in question more wild or Quixotic than 
the institution of civil society itself, especially than the 
leagues and alliances recorded in history, and the Federal 
Union of thirty independent States in our own government. 
What is needed is, that the idea of a great pacific tribunal 
to settle the disputes of the world, should be broached, 
familiarized to the people, sent abroad on the wings of the 
press, hammered by dint of heavy and oft-repeated argu- 
ments into the mass of admitted and accredited truths, and 
then the work is done. We have trained mankind to war, 
we must now train them to peace. When the spirit of 
peace is largely developed in the public sentiment of Europe 
and America, this institution will be bom in a day. The 
tendency of these remarks is to show that the agitation of 
the subject is what is now most exigent. By books and 
pamphlets, by the living voice and the inspired pen, this 
theme must be brought home to the minds and hearts of 
men, and they must be made to feel that every individual, 
be he high or low, rich or poor, is vitally concerned in hav- 
ing the great quarrels of kingdoms justly and amicably 
settled, as he is that justice should be done between man 
and man, and peace and order prevail in his hamlet or 
village. For in the earthquake shocks of war a thousand 
homes are overturned, and the mark of blood is left behind 



rACIFICATlON OF THE WORLD. 277 

on ten thousand spheres of life once usefully and happily 
lilled by fathers, sons, husbands, brothers. Let us hope, and 
labor, and pray, that the day may not be far distant when 
civilized and Clmstian men will see the madness of war, its 
bald inconsistency with the theory of a republican govern- 
ment, its hostility to the spirit of the present age, and its 
nullification of every law, and promise, and prayer of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

PACIFICATION OF THE WORLD. 

I 
" When the drums shall throb no longer, 
And the battle-flags be furled 
In the Parliament of man, 

The Federation of the world." — Tennyson. 

" Neither shall they learn war any more." — Isaiah. 

Since war has so many evils, and peace so many bless- 
ings, may we not labor with hope for the fulfilment of the 
prophet's vision ? Since the expenditures of military ex- 
peditions, the destruction of multitudes of lives, the barbari- 
ties, executions, illegalities, personal, domestic, and political 
evils, the vices of the camp, the creation of a species of 
martial literature, the introduction of false maxims of con- 
duct, and the counteraction of the Gospel by the war-spirit, 
chargeable upon our conflict with Mexico, are virtually the 
same in all wars, may we not hope that the good sense of 
mankind, and their feelings of human brotherhood, will 
24 



278 PACIFICATION OF THF WORLD. 

finally gain such a predominance as to effect the pacification 
of the whole world? And, especially, is not this expectation 
encouraged by the well known fact that many other evil 
customs and habits have disappeared and are disappearing 
before the more Christian civilization of the present day ? 
What now is witchcraft ? An obsolete superstition. Where 
are torture, and the appeal to fire, or water ? Laid away 
among exploded ideas. Where are the Inquisition and per- 
secution for heresy? Gone beyond all power of recall. 
Where are privateering, and piracy, and the slave trade ? 
All entered in the " Index Expurgatorius " of international 
law. Where are slavery, intemperance, and war ? Grad- 
ually falling under the same ban, and no longer acquiesced 
in as necessary evils, but recognized as mutable and capable ' 
of eradication with the other corrupt usages specified, if 
efficient and Christian means be applied, with faith and per- 
severance, for their removal. The day is gone for any 
man, with the Bible in his hand, and God and heaven above 
him, to say that war must be eternal. We do not presume 
to date the year or century of the laying aside by the 
nations of their cumbrous coats of mail, and the disarma- 
ment of their numerous troops and squadrons, and the estab- 
lishment of those modes of adjusting international difficulties 
detailed in the last chapter. But we see already symptoms 
of returning health in the body politic, though joined with 
some other prognostics less favorable. Cases of mediation, 
arbitration, and peaceable intervention, are multiplying. 
Treaties are constructed with more reference to perma- 
nency. It has become fashionable even for kings and states- 
men, out of deference to a certain rising public sentiment of 
mankind, to speak well of peace. War has been summoned 
to ansAver for itself before the judgment-seat of civilization 
and of Christianity, and it is found to make but a poor jus- 
tification. The friends oT peace are in earnest and increas- 
ing. The solitary protestations of a Penn or Worcester 



PACIFICATION OP THE WORLD. 279 

have multiplied into the deep-toned remonstrances of a Lon- 
don, a Brussels, and a Paiis World's Convention of Peace. 
The press and the pulpit are enlisted. The power of asso- 
ciation is invoked. "Olive leaves" are flying far and near. 
While, therefore, the drum-beat still heralds the morning 
sun round the globe, we will not so far distrust God, or 
despair of our race, as to believe that, when daily triumphs 
are achieved over the brute elements of nature ; and fire, and 
water, and steam, and magnetism, and electricity are bowed 
to the service and control of man, he is never to acquire any 
better government over those brutal passions of his own 
nature, whose outbreaks are far more disastrous to life and 
happiness than the volcano, the earthquake, or the hurricane. 

When we consider how little has been done to prevent 
war, and how much to cultivate its spirit, and to invest it?. 
feats with a factitious glory ; how hterature and the fine arts, 
and politics, and, sad to confess, even professed Christians 
have encouraged, applauded, and diffused the passion for 
arms, we wonder not at the frequency of battles, and the 
human blood that has stained half the land and sea of the 
whole earth. Indeed the martial spirit has been so prevalent, 
mankind have drunk it so greedily as if it were as innocent 
as water, that we are prone to forget what a thorough educa- 
tion we give our children for war, and how little we do for 
the pacification of the world. 

For when we inquire how this vast underlying passion for 
war has been educated and ripened in the heart of society, we 
shall be constrained to answer: It is by the war-songs of child- 
hood, and the studies of the classics. It is by the wooden 
sword, and the tin drum of boyhood. It is by the trainings 
and the annual muster. It is by the red uniform and the white 
plume, and the prancing steed. It is by the cannon's thun- 
der, and the gleam of the bayonet. It is by ballads of Robin 
Hood, and histories of Napoleon, and " Tales of the Cru- 
saders." It is by the presentation of flags by the hands of 



280 PACIFICATION OF THE WORLD. 

the fair, and the huzzas for a victory. It is by the example 
of the father and the consent of the mother. It is by the 
fear of cowardice, and the laugh of the scorner. It is by 
the blood of youth, and the pride of manhood, and stories 
of revolutionary sires. It is by standing armies, and majestic 
men-of-war. It is by the maxims of self defence, and the 
cheapness of human life, and the love of excitement. It is 
by novels of love, and the " Pirate's Own Book." It is by 
the jars of home, and the squabbles of party, and the con- 
troversies of sects. It is by the misconception of the Bible, 
and ignorance of God. It is by the bubble of glory, and 
the emulation of schools, and the graspings of money-making. 
By one and by all, the heart of the community is educated 
for war, from the cradle to the coffin. When we sow the 
seed so copiously, we must not complain that the harvest is 
abundant. 

And if we would inquire, how the heart of the world can 
be calmed, and enlarged, and inspired with the life-breath 
of peace ; we can only say that such a heart comes from the 
nurture of home, and the solemnity of the church, and the 
tomb of the loved and gone. It comes by the closet of 
prayer, and the communion of nature, and the table of the 
Lord. It comes by a sister's love and a brother's example, 
and the memory of " the good old place." It comes in the 
distilling dew of Christian instruction and the infinite sanc- 
tions of death, judgment, and eternity. It comes by the 
sweetness of Fenelon, and the love of Scougal ; by the maj- 
esty of Luther, and the humanity of Penn. It comes by 
the horror of blood, and the courage to be a coward in the 
wrong. It comes by the testimonies of the wise, and the 
heroism of the good. It comes by the Beatitudes of the 
New Testament, and the Lord's Prayer, and Paul's master- 
piece of Charity, and John's epistle of Love. It comes by 
him who was born in a manger and died on a cross, the Son 
of Grod, the Prince of Peace, the Saviour of sinners. 



CONCLUSION. 281 

By these means the weaker spirit of war may be made to 
yield to the mightier spirit of peace. " And," in the words 
of an English divine,* suggestive of some of the foregoing 
remarks, " it must appear to what most awful obligation and 
duty we hold all those from whom this heart takes its nature 
and shape, our king, our princes, our nobles, all who wear 
the badge of office, or honor; all priests, judges, senators, 
pleaders, interpreters of law, all instructors of youth, all 
seminaries of education, all parents, all learned men, all pro- 
fessors of science and art, all teachers of manners. Upon 
them depends the fashion of the nation's heart. By them it 
is to be chastised, refined, and purified. By them is the state 
to lose the character and title of the beast of prey. By them 
are the iron scales to fall off, and a skin of youth, beauty, 
freshness, and polish, to come upon it. By them it is to be 
made so tame and gentle as that a child may lead it." 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

CONCLUSION. 

" I have been apt to think there never has been, nor ever will be, any 
such thing as a good war, or a bad peace." — Franklin. 

" Then, at least shall it be seen, that there can he no peace that is not 
honorable^ and there can he no war that is not dishonorable" — Charles 
Sumner. 

An able writer of the present day has said, that "the 
philosophical study of facts may be undertaken for three 
different purposes ; the simple description of the facts ; their 

* Rev. Dr. Ramsden. 
24* 



282 CONCLUSION. 

explanation ; or prediction, meaning by prediction, the deter- 
mination of the conditions under which similar facts may be 
expected again to occur." The Mexican war is now num- 
bered among the things of the past. What has been done, 
is done ; and what has been written, is written. Its conse- 
quences, however, mil long remain, and will mingle with 
future events and influences materially to affect our national 
prospects. A treaty may stop the war, though some symp- 
toms are unfavorable, but it cannot stop the war-results. The 
question then is, how can this great evil be turned to the 
best account. After narrating and explaining its events, so 
as to get a clear idea of its origin, causes, losses of hfe and 
treasure, and its social, political, and moral evils, the next 
step is to state the conditions on which we may predicate the 
recurrence of similar mischiefs ; or draw such lessons of 
warning and encouragement, as will tend to prevent them. 
This end the American Peace Society propose to accomplish 
by publisliing a Review of the War, and pointing out clearly 
and impressively to the citizens of our land, what measures 
should be taken to save us from pkmging again into like 
calamities. Thus reviewed, and exposed, this darkest of all 
the passages in our country's history, and most ominous of 
evil to come, in the judgment of wise statesmen, and sage 
moralists, may be converted into an unexpected blessing. 
The wars, consequent upon the French Revolution, aroused 
the friends of Peace on both sides of the ocean to more 
positive and combined action in behalf of this cause, and 
induced the formation of associations to work for the grand 
object of a universal and perpetual pacification of the world. 
Much has thus been effected to enlighten both rulers and 
people, and to impress upon both their solemn duties. Much 
has been done by the devoted and untiring laborers in this 
department of Christian philanthropy, over which angels 
must rejoice, and the King of kings extend his benediction. 
But the great work has but just been commenced. We 



CONCLUSION. 283 

cannot suppose that so " splendid " a sin as war can at once 
be stripped of its false and fascinating garb, that the deeplj- 
rooted and long-revered customs of nations can be torn up 
in a day, martial passions and habits be checked, and a pub- 
lic opinion, and a public conscience and heart too be formed 
on the subject, of sufficient potency to sheathe the sword for- 
ever. But the slowness of progress, the discouragements of 
efforts, the violent opposition with which a good cause and 
its advocates meet, do not release us from our duty to that 
cause, or furnish in reality a solitary reason why we should fold 
our arms in despair. The cause of Peace only suffers a like 
fate from opposition, misconstruction and misrepresentation, as 
the other glorious causes of philanthropy, and as that parent 
religion of which these causes are the legitimate and hopeful 
offspring. We may be sure that nothing is lost, that is done 
in a true spirit and a high aim for the furtherance of human 
good, and the divine glory. God forbid that we should ever 
fear that " His ear is heavy that it cannot hear, or His hand 
shortened, that it cannot save ! " 

In this faith, the Mexican war is a new weapon, put into 
the hands of peace, wherewith to win her bloodless victories. 
It teaches us, were lessons wanting, the folly of all war, its 
sin against God, and its subversion of His great plan. It 
teaches us by its gory fields of carnage, and the screaming 
hells of its hospitals, that a retributive God sits in the heaV' 
ens, and that those " who take the sword, shall perish by the 
sword." K rightly interpreted and faithfully laid to heart, 
it is capable of showing us the emptiness of military glory, 
the contentious and unchristian spirit which it cherishes 
among the officers and soldiers of the same side, the torrent 
of vices that is let loose in the path of armies, and the pro- 
fuse waste that is made of all that men hold dear, or labor 
most industriously to attain. It is a lesson at home, a repub- 
lican, an American lesson. It has been brought nigh to 
many a heart, alas, and many a home, and burnt as with a 



'2S4: CONCLUSION. 

red-hot branding-iron upon the memory of thousands, by- 
bereavements and pains, such as God only can know, and 
eternity measure. And we beheve that all the warnings and 
forebodings of the opponents to the annexation of Texas 
now stand vindicated in the light of a fearful and guilty his- 
tory. Their prophecy is now fact. They predicted a war 
with Mexico, the extension of slavery and the slave-power, 
and infuriate lust of territory, the hatching of new schemes 
of war and plunder, and a headlong course of conquest and 
aggrandizement. We are deep in these evils and their 
results, or waver on the brink, apparently about to plunge in 
deeper than ever. If these things be so, then let the pre- 
dictions and warnings of the friends of peace at this time 
not fall, Cassandra-like, on cold hearts and insensible con- 
sciences. But let every patriot and Christian, every lover 
of liberty and man, study what he can do to help stay the 
hour of his country's danger, and, perhaps, ruin. It profits 
little to sit stdl and croak, like the ill-boding raven, of iUs to 
come ; but we must forth into the field of duty, action, and 
influence, and by voice and vote, by pen and purse, by 
example and precept, by a living and by a dying testimony, 
whether ours be the widow's mite or the rich man's offering, 
the influence of the high, or the word of the humble, strive, 
as for life, to arrest the downward tendency of things, recall 
the promise of our young republic, relight the torch of free- 
dom, shame modern degeneracy with the early doctrines of 
our history, and set in vivid contrast the heathen nation we 
are in danger of becoming, with the glory of a true Chris- 
tian commonwealth. 

Let, therefore, these awful lapses in national virtue only 
serve to arouse to a more comprehensive and resolute course 
of action the disciples of the Prince of Peace. Let them 
thank God and take courage, that if they cannot wholly 
extinguish the Avide-spread conflagration of war, they can 
yet rescue many victims from its fiery passions and its cor- 



CONCLUSION. 285 

rupting moral code. Let them bear their testimony against 
evils, still too powerful to be subdued at once. Let them see 
the hope and beauty of a brighter to-morrow symbolized in 
the rainbow that spans the departing thunder-cloud. War 
is but one section of the kingdom of Satan that is doomed to 
be overthrown by the kingdom of God. There is as much 
encouragement in laboring to remove this sin as any other 
of the gigantic evils that prey upon humanity. Faith, there- 
fore, faith is the word ; faith vivified and illuminated by 
hope ; faith made strong, and gentle, and patient by charity ; 
faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord, the spiritual Governor of 
men, in whose kingdom of liberty, righteousness, and love, 
all nations, races, colors, clans, and sects, will at last be har- 
monized, and God shall be all in all. 

Yea, despite the late war, despite the belligerent symp- 
toms of the day at home, despite the warlike aspect of Chris- 
tendom abroad, though all Europe seems to be turned into 
barracks and camps, and every country to be resounding 
with the march of armies hastening to the combat, our just 
and reasonable confidence in the ultimate triumph of the 
Gospel of peace is not in the least shaken. The last thirty 
years of comparative pacification have not passed in vain. 
Darker clouds than now overhang our horizon, have in 
former times shut out the light of heaven and hope. If in 
the solid midnight of sin and superstition, when the whole 
world lay bound at the chariot wheels of a military despot- 
ism, Jesus and his apostles knew that a better day was com- 
ing, how undying should be our faith amid the breaking of 
the morning hght ! For the truth is great, and it will pre- 
vail. God is faithful, and his promise will be redeemed. 
The Gospel is from the Almighty, and it must prevail over 
man. It is hght from heaven, and the darkness of earth 
must flee before it. Its power is infinite, and its obstacles 
only finite. 

Though for a season then, or for ages its victory may be 



286 CONCLUSION. 

delayed, the final result is none the less certain, for it is 
guaranteed by Him who alone is True. Verily, though the 
world should again plunge into that gulf of horrors, called a 
general war; though Christian nations should apostatize, 
and the churches sink into corruption; though the mighty 
impulses of philanthroj^y should fail, and the missionaries of 
the cross should return home, and renounce the sublime hope 
of evangelizing the world ; though our holy faith should 
retire from the city and the assembly of men, and hide itself 
from the gaze of the world, we would yet follow her in fear 
and darkness to her last holy retreat on earth, to the spot, 
where a mother was kneeling over her ncAv-bom infant, and 
offering up to the Father of spirits her thanks and supplica- 
tions, and even there catch a new inspiration of faith and 
hope for the revival of Christianity. For we should remem- 
ber the sacred scene, eighteen hundred years ago, when the 
mother of Bethlehem prayed over the babe in the manger, 
and blessed her Saviour-child ; and angels from heaven sang 
the anthem of his birth ; " Glory to God in the highest, and 
on earth peace, good will toward men." 



APPENDIX 



THE HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THE WAB. 



" Lastly, stood War, in glittering arms yclad, 
"With visage grim, stern look, and blackly hued ; 
In his right hand a naked sword he had, 
That to the hUt was aU with blood imbrued ; 
And in his left (that kings and kingdoms rued) 
Famine and fire he held, and therewithal 
He razed towers, and threw down towers and all. 

" Cities he sacked, and realms (that whilom flowered 
In honor, glory, and rule above the rest) 
He overwhelmed, and aU their fame devoured, 
Consumed, destroyed, wasted ; and never ceased 
Till he their wealth, their name and all oppressed. 
His face forehewed with wounds ; and by his side 
There hung his targe, with gashes deep and wide." 

Thomas Saoeyille. 

All honor to the hearty old English Poet, who dared thus, in a 
warlike age, to unveil the hideous idol men worshipped, under the 
self-contradictory terras of military glory. He represents the god as 
no young and knightly cavalier, riding forth, splendidly arrayed, at 
the sound of martial music, to do the feats of chivalry, and redress 
the wrongs of the injured. Far truer is his personification. The 
figure of his brain, moulded in a feeling heart, Avas that of a grim 
and ghastly giant, bringing up the rear of the procession of Remorse, 
Dread, Revenge, Misery, Care, Malady, Famine, and Death ; his face 
dark and stern, and scarred with woundfT ; his hands filled with the awful 
besoms of destruction, fire, and hunger, and the sword ; his rent and 
battered shield hanging at his side ; and his path marked with burning 
cities, desolated countries, falling realms, haggard want, and ruin and 



288 APPENDIX. 

oblivion. He thus wrote, in the words of Poetry, the solemn tinith of 
History. Would to heaven that all his brethren of the immortal art 
had been equally faithful ! 

In recording a brief sketch of the events of the Mexican War, for 
the purpose of reference, we shall paint no battle-scenes, and utter no 
eulogies. Enough of them may be found in other quarters, to satisfy 
the most morbid appetite. The letter-wi-iter, the biographer, the poli- 
tician, the historian, and the rhymster, have vied with one another, in 
giving illuminated editions of its fearful tales. The artist has painted 
the features of its heroes, and the panoramas of its marches and bat- 
tles. The engraver has ti-aced on wood, and stone, and steel, the 
deadly charge, the smoke of musketry and artillery, and the dead and 
dying stretched upon the bloody earth, with the Star-spangled Banner 
leading on its hosts to victory. Dazzled with the false show, and 
excited with the intoxication of a momentary triumph, men thus fail 
to see war as it is, in all its heart-rending realities and its lasting re- 
sults. It is a mere gorgeous vision, a passing di-eam of glory to them. 
They do not look down into its abysses of pains and agonies ; its awful 
Aceldama of groans, and tears, and death. We desire, by no word of 
ours, to invest these scenes -with aught but their own proper charac- 
ter. We would simply narrate coldly, and it may be tamely, the bare 
facts. 

The Mexican War dates virtually, though not actually, from the 
3d of March, 1 845, when, by a Joint Resolution, which was passed by 
both branches of Congress — in the House of Representatives, by a 
vote of 120 to 98 ; and in the Senate, of 27 to 25 — and which was on 
that day, the last of his administration, signed by the President, John 
Tyler, Texas was annexed to the American Union. 

The Mexican Minister, Almonte, immediately demanded his pass- 
ports, and left the country ; declaring the act of annexation to be an 
act of hostility to Mexico. Distinguished statesmen of the United 
States also took the same view of the subject. 

But Mexico was poor, distracted, and revolutionary, and she had no 
means to vindicate what she regarded as her violated honor. The act 
of war did not follow. She contented herself with protesting. 

The United States, however, were not idle. In August, 1845,* Gren, 
Taylor was despatched, with a regular body of troops, dra-wn from, 
different posts, — first as an army of " Observation," then of " Occupa- 
tion," — to the town of Corpus Christi. 

♦ 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. 60, p. 101. 



HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THE WAR. 289 

But on the 13tli of Januaiy, 1846, Mr. Marcy, Secretary of War of 
the United States, ^\Tote to Gen. Taylor, as follows : * " I am directed, 
by the President, to instruct you to advance and occupy, -with the 
troops under your command, positions on or near the east bank of the 

Rio del Norte, as soon as it can be conveniently done 

It is not designed, in our present relations with Mexico, that you. 
should treat her as an enemy ; but should she assume that character, 
by a declaration of war, or any open act of hostility towards us, you 
will not act merely on the defensive^ Gen. Taylor obeyed orders. He 
received the letter early in February, and, on the 11th of March, he 
commenced his march from Corpus Christi for the Rio Grande, one 
hundred and fifty miles distant, across a desert, or rolling prairie. On 
the 20th of the same month he was met, at the river Colorado, by the 
Mexicans, whose commanding ofiicer. Gen. Mejia, announced, that 
if the American forces should cross that river, it would be considered 
as a declaration of war, and actual hostilities would ensue.t But the 
warning was disregarded, and the troops pursued their way, and 
arrived on the banks of the Rio Grande without any serious molesta- 
tion. Repeated remonstrances were made by the authoi'ities, both 
civil and military, to the American commander, against the occu- 
pation of what they regarded as a part of the Mexican province of 
Tamaulipas. They declared the alternative of his withdrawal to the 
Nueces or war. But Taylor remained, and erected Fort Brown, on 
the left bank of the Rio Grande, commanding the city of Matamoras 
on the other side. Several skirmishes took place between parties of 
the two nations, in which lives were lost. Fort Brown, and a small 
force left to keep possession of it, were bombarded, during the absence 
of the commander-in-chief and his main army, to obtain his mili- 
tary stores, which had been landed at Point Isabel ; but the Americans 
maintained their position, though summoned to surrender. 

On his return from Point Isabel, Gen. Taylor was met by the Mex- 
ican army, under the command of Gen. Arista, at a point on the prai- 
ries, a few miles from the Rio Grande, called Palo Alto, which is dis- 
tinguished, as giving a name to the first battle of the war. The con- 
test occurred on the 8th of May, 1846, commencing at about two 
o'clock, P. M. ; and was sustained during five hours, when the Mex- 
icans were defeated, with great loss in killed and wounded. The 

* 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Eepresentatives, Ex. Doc. 60, pp. 90, 91. 
Also, for the war-despatches in general, see 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Re- 
presentatives, Ex. Doc. 60. Senate, Ex. Doc. 1. 30th Congress, 2d Session, House of 
Eepresentatives, Ex. Doc. 1. 

t 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Eepresentatives, Ex. Doc. 60, pp. 145, 146. 

25 



290 APPENDIX. 

Americans numbered 2,300, according to the report of their general ; 
while he says " the strength of the enemy is believed to have been 
about 6,000 men." 

On the following day, May 9th, Gen. Taylor advanced two or three 
miles along the road through the chapparal, towards the Rio Grande, 
when he found the enemy in position for battle, at a ravine called 
Resaca de la Palma. The action commenced about four o'clock in the 
afternoon, and lasted one hour and a half; when the Mexicans, under 
the command of Aiista, were entirely routed and pursued to the river, 
in which multitudes wei-e di'owned, in attempting to cross to Mata- 
moras. 

The immediate result of these victories was the capture, without 
resistance, of the city of Matamoras, and the opening of the whole 
Valley of the Eio Grande to the American arms. The forces of the 
enemy were disj^ersed, and, to use the military phrase, demoralized. 
The reverses of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma had sent dismay 
through the country. In the course of the summer Gen. Taylor occu- 
pied, without any difficulty, the towns of Reynosa, Camargo, Mier, and 
Ceralvo, and advanced upon Monterey. 

In the meantime, advices had been received at Washington of the 
critical situation af Gen. Taylor, about the 1st of May; and the Presi- 
dent, in a Message to Congress, dated the 1 1 th of that month, used 
the following language : * " But now, after reiterated menaces, Mexico 
has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our terri- 
tory, and shed American blood upon American soil. She has pro- 
claimed that hostilities have commenced, and that the two nations are 
now at war." 

" As war exists, and, notwithstanding our efforts to avoid it, exists 
by the act of Mexico herself, we are called upon, by every considera- 
tion of duty and patriotism, to vindicate, with decision, the honor, the 
rights and the interests of our country." 

On the same day, a bill passed the House of Representatives, 174 
to 14, and, on the subsequent one, was enacted by the Senate, 42 to 2, 
declaring, that, " by the acts of the Republic of Mexico, a state of war 
exists between the United States and that republic ; " placing ten mil- 
lions of dollars at the disposal of the President ; and authorizing him 
to employ the land and naval forces of the United States, and to ac- 
cept the services of volunteers, to a number not exceeding 50,000, in 

* 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. 60, pp. 8, 9. 



HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THE WAR. 291 

prosecuting the war. On the 13th of May, 1846, a Proclamation of 
War was issued by the highest executive authority. 

A warlike enthusiasm ran, like wild-fire, over the Western, South- 
western, and Southern sections of the country, and, in many in- 
stances, the number of volunteers, said to be 3€0,000 in all, was 
far greater than could be mustered into service, according to the gene- 
ral appropriation of the respective States.* The Great Valley re- 
sounded with the din of preparation. Fathers and sons enlisted. 
Some of more than the allotted age of man, seized the musket. More 
than one of the ministers of the Prince of Peace caught the dangerous 
contagion. The latent passions of the heart took fire, like tinder, at the 
cry of war. 

In such popular excitements men do not reason, they only feel, and, 
feeling, act. Thus impelled, they may do the noblest deeds ; they may 
also perpetrate the most wicked crimes, and set in motion the most 
irretrievable calamities. The call to arms is the occasion, of all others, 
when human beings seem to lay aside the more manly and Christian 
attributes of character, and put on those of the beast of prey, or 
worse. But it is necessary also to admit, that a leaven of well-inten- 
tioned, though often mistaken patriotism, mingles with the dark mass 
of animal and demoniac passions. A wild love of adventure, without 
reference to the innocence or guilt of the objects to which it is directed, 
also carries away the settlers in a new state of society, as with a flood. 
Add some anticipations of booty ; some old grudges of Santa Fe, and 
other border traders ; some Texan vengeance, for the massacres of 
Goliad and the Alamo ; some ideas of Anglo-Saxon destiny ; some 
hope of distinction, and desire of bettering perhaps desperate fortunes ; 
and we haA^e glimpses of the more prominent elements that moulded 
thousands to one purpose, and precipitated them upon a second " con- 
quest of Mexico." 

The means, however, of transporting the troops to the theatre of 
action, were not sufficient to enable the American commander to 
advance rapidly into the enemy's country. About 9,000 men only 
were under the command of Gen. Taylor, in the beginning of June ; 
and he assaulted Monterey, the capital of Nuevo Leon, about three 
hundred and forty miles from Matamoras, with less than 7,000. On 
the 19th of September, 1846, he appeared before that city, and invested 
it. Active operations were carried on during Sunday, the 20th, 21st, 
22d, and 23d ; and on the 24th, the Mexican commander, Gen. Am- 
pudia, sun-endered. 

* Young's History of Mexico, p. 380. 



dd2 APPENDIX. 

Santa Anta returned from the West Indies to Vera Cruz * and on the 
15th of September, 1846, he reentered the capital, from which he had 
been driven into exile, and was placed at the head of the Mexican 
armies. He infused new resolution into his countrymen, after all their 
reverses, and assembled an army of more than 20,000 men, called the 
" Liberating Army of the North," to oppose Gen. Taylor. He contri- 
buted largely, of his own private property, to furnish supplies to hia 
troops, and was engaged for months in equipping, drilling, and organ- 
izing the different corps of his forces, at San Luis Potosi. 

In the autumn, Gen. Taylor advanced bodies of troops to Saltillo, 
sixty-five miles from Monterey ; while Gen. Wool marched an army 
of 2,400 over the Rio Grande, at the Presidio del Norte, and occupied 
Monclova, and subsequently Parras. Gen. Quitman captured the town 
of Victoria. In fact, the northern frontier of Mexico, upon the Rio 
Grande, was in the complete possession of the Americans. 

But the Mexican commander-in-chief determined to strike a deci- 
sive blow against the invaders of his country ; and, on the 22d and 
23d of February, 1847, he met Gen. Taylor in the valley of Buena 
Vista, (beautiful sight,) six miles south of Saltillo, with troops, as he 
stated in his challenge to surrender, amounting to 20,000 men. After 
a ten-ible and sanguinary battle, fought two days, the Americans again 
won a complete victory, at a fearful cost of life. 

The Mexicans retreated in great disoi'der, during the night after the 
battle, and the late formidable army was wholly disorganized and 
scattered. The route, by which they retired, was strewed with the 
dead and dying. Santa Anna returned to the city of Mexico, and 
Gen. Taylor reoccupied his former positions, and advanced as far as 
to Encarnacion. No victory could be more decisive in its results. 

With the exception of guerilla skirmishes, no other battles were 
fought by Gen. Taylor except the four successful ones of Palo Alto, 
Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, and Buena Vista. He urged upon the 
Mexican Government from time to time the question of peace, but 
they persisted in declaring that as long as a single invader had his foot 
upon their soil, they scorned the proposal. " Say to General Taylor," 
said Santa Anna, when the subject was communicated to him after the 

* The foUowiug pass gave him admission into Mexico : 

" U. S. Navy Department^ May 13, 1846. 
" CosfMODORE — If Santa Anna endeavors to enter the Mexican ports, you mil 
allow him to pass freely. 

" Respectfully yours, George Banckopt. 

" Commodore David Connor, Commanding Home Squadron.''^ 



HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THE WAR. 293 

battle of Buena Vista, " that we sustain the most sacred of causes, — 
the defence of our territory, and the preservation of our nationality and 
rights ; that we are not the aggressors ; and that our Government has 
never offended that of the United States. We can say nothing of 
peace while the Americans are on this side of the Rio Bravo del Norte, 
or occupy any part of the Mexican territory, or blockade our ports. 
We are resolved to perish or vindicate our rights." 

After this necessarily brief and imperfect sketch of the operations of 
what was at first called " the Army of Observation," then " the Ai-my 
of Occupation," and what finally became, with a significant title, the 
Army of " Invasion,"* let us turn to view another part of the field 
of Avar. 

It had been proposed soon after the war broke out, to invade Mexico 
at three different points, and thus divide and distract her forces. The 
main army, under Gen. Taylor, was to advance from the Rio Grande 
towards San Luis Potosi ; a second smaller division, called " the Army 
of the Centre," under Gen. Wool, was to march from Bexar, in Texas, 
upon Chihuahua, the results of both of which movements have already 
been given. But a third expedition, to be called " the Ai-my of the 
West," was to proceed from Missouri, cross the plains, occupy New 
Mexico, hold its capital, Santa Fe, and after that was achieved, a por- 
tion of the same troops was to occupy California. 

On the 30th of June, 1846, Gen. Samuel W. Kearaey led the Army 
of the West from Fort Leavenworth, situated on the river Missouri, and 
after a march of 890 miles, took possession of Santa Fe, without re- 
sistance, on the 18th of August, 1846. On the 25th of September, 
after making provision for a temporary government of New Mexico, he 
took 300 dragoons, and marched on the route to California. Learning 
on the way that that territory had been brought under the flag of the 
United States by Commodore Stockton and Lieut.- Colonel Fremont, 
after some severe skirmishes with the enemy, he left 200 of his troops 
in New Mexico, and with the remainder he marched 1,050 miles to 
San Diego, near the Pacific Ocean. Several conflicts occurred with 
the enemy, in which a considerable number were killed and wounded 
on both sides. But victory attended the American arms in most in- 
stances, and the territory was hopelessly subdued. 

Of the troops left behind in New Mexico, and augmented by rein- 
forcements from the States, one portion was under the command of 
Col. S. Price, and the remainder under that of Col. A. W= Doniphan. 

* See Appendix to Hon. J. H. Crozier's speech, delivered in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, Jan. 21, 1847. 

25* 



294 APPENDIX. 

On the 19th of January, 1847, the Mexicans and Indians revolted 
against Gov, Bent of this territory, and put him and his followers, to 
the number of fifteen, to death. Col. Price, with a body of 353 men, 
met the enemy at the town of Canada, on Sunday, Jan. 24, 1847, and 
dispersed them. A detachment of the same troops, under Capt. Burg- 
win, engaged and conquered the enemy on Jan. 29th, at the pass of 
Embudo. On Feb. 3d and 4th, Col. Price besieged a stronghold of the 
insurgents, called Pueblo de Taos, defended by 600 or 700 men, and 
took it after a severe contest. 

The other section of Gen. Kearney's army, 856 mounted riflemen, 
^ under the command of Col. Doniphan, left Santa Fe on the 26th of 
October, 1846, and traversed New Mexico, Chihuahua, Durango, and 
New Leon. At Bracito, in New Mexico, on Dec. 25, 1846, on Christ- 
mas Day, the Colonel, with about 500 of his troops, met and defeated 
1,220 Mexicans. The battle of Sacramento, in Chihuahua, was fought 
on Sunday, Feb. 28, 1847. After a bloody encounter of three hours 
and a half, the Mexicans fled. 

The following is a short summary of the naval operations carried on 
in the meantime against Mexico. On the 1 8th of May, 1846, the Amer- 
ican squadron under the flag of Commodore Conner, consisting of five 
ships of war, blockaded Vera Cruz, and one sloop of war was stationed 
off Tampico. On the 14th of November, Commodore Conner took pos- 
session of the latter port without firing a gun. Previously to this, Com- 
modore Perry ascended the river Tobasco seventy-four miles with seve- 
ral vessels, and on Sunday, Oct. 25th, he anchored opposite the town of 
the same name, and summoned it to surrender. On the succeeding 
day the town was severely cannonaded, and nearly demolished. 

Several other ports on the eastern coast of Mexico, Tuspan, Alva- 
rado, Panuco, were occupied by the Americans, and many vessels were 
captured. In fact, the naval power of the enemy was anniliilated. 

On the Pacific, Commodore Sloat occupied Monterey, the capital of 
Upper California, on the 7th of July, 1846, and announced by pro- 
clamation to the inhabitants that " henceforward California will be a 
portion of the United States, and promised that all the peaceable in- 
habitants should enjoy the same rights, privileges, and protection, as the 
other citizens of the republic." But in the course of the following win- 
ter, 1846-7, the Califoraians rose and offered resistance to their in- 
vaders, which was suppressed by Col. Fremont with a handful of sol- 
diers, and by Commodore Stockton with a detachment from his fleet, 
and subsequently by Gen. Kearney, as before related. 

The principal operations of the naval force in the war had thus far 



HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THE WAR. 295 

been on land, or against ports and towns capable of being reached by 
vessels at anchor, with the exception of the service of transporting 
troops from the United States to the scene of action. But a new the- 
atre of greater importance, though of similar character was opened by 
the siege of Vera Cmz. 

Mexico had been repeatedly solicited, after the various successful 
movements which have been described, to enter into negotiations of 
peace, but she would hearken to no terms whatever while her soil was 
covered with hostile forces. Her noble motto was, " The integrity of 
the national territory." The next step accordingly was, to carry 
the war more into " the vitals " of the country, and to " conquer a 
peace " by conquering the capital of the republic. A campaign was 
therefore entered upon by Gen. Winfield Scott, senior officer of the 
regular army of the United States, in the early part of 1847. The 
plan was to capture Vera Cruz, the principal sea-port, make that the 
base of operations, advance into the interior by the great line of com- 
munication, and take the city of Mexico, situated in the heart of the 
country, about 350 miles from the gulf of the same name. 

Vera Cruz and the Castle of San Juan d'Ulloa were invested by land 
and sea with the American forces under the direction of Gen. Scott and 
Commodore Perry, in March, 1847 ; and on Monday the 22nd of that 
month, after a sammons to surrender had been offered and rejected, 
the batteries were opened upon the city. The inhabitants were in num- 
ber about 4,000 or 5,000, besides the families of the foreign consuls, who 
had not taken advantage of the permission granted them by Gen. Scott 
to retire from the scene of danger. A terrible carnage ensued among 
the people from the heavy metal and the fotal accuracy of the Amer- 
ican gunners. It was computed that 6,700. shot and shell were thrown, 
weighing 4G.3,600 i)ounds, in four days. On the 26th, Gen. Landero, 
commanding officer of the place, made overtures for a capitulation. 
The aAvful desolation that reigned over the devoted city counselled 
submission. The terms of capitulation were signed on the 27th, exe- 
cuted on the 29th, and possession given of both the town and the al- 
most impregnable castle. 

The next principal engagement took place on the heights of Cerrp 
Gordo, fifty miles from Vera Cruz, on Saturday and Sunday, April 
17th and 18th, between Gen. Scott aad Gen. Santa Anna, in which the 
latter was entirely defeated, and narrovv-ly escaped being taken prison- 
er as he fled from the field. 

On the 15th of May, the city of Puebla, eighty miles from Perote, 
on the route to Mexico, was taken without opposition. During the 



296 APPENDIX. 

summer, reinforcements of men and arms were accumulated by Gen. 
Scott at Pucbla, at which phice, leaving- a competent garrison, he began 
his march toward the capital, the ITtli of August, 1847, a distance of 
from 100 to 120 miles. 

On the 19th and 20th of August, the successive actions of Contreras, 
San Antonio, and Chni-ubusco, were fought in tlie Valley of Mexico, 
and in the immediate neighborhood of the capital. In all these battles 
the usual rule held good, and the victory was won by the Americans. 

After these engagements an armistice was agreed upon, and nego- 
tiations for peace were entered into by N. P. Trist, Commissioner on 
the part of the Executive of the United States, and Commissioners on 
the part of Mexico. But they were ineffectual, and the law of force 
was again resorted to instead of the law of reason. The ultimatum of 
boundaries was understood to be the rock on which this new attempt 
at peace was wrecked. 

The armistice was thrown up, and the battle of El INIolino del Eey, 
or King's Mill, was fought on Sept. 8, 1847. 

On Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, Sept. 12th, 13th, and 14th, the 
strong fortress of Chapultepec, outside of the city, was cannonaded, 
stormed, and carried, the defences at the gates assaulted and captured, 
and early on the morning of the 14th, the city surrendered to Gen. 
Scott. The operations consisted of a succession of assaults and en- 
gagements from point to point, and from one battery to another, until, 
bv the skill and the fierce bravery of tlie American troops, the object of 
their ambition was attained, and they entered " the halls of Monte- 
zuma." But victory was bought at a costly saci'ifice. A scattering 
fire by leperos, — criminals set free from prison, and disbanded soldiers, 
from the streets and houses, was kept up on the ti'oops after the city- 
was surrendered, in which many lives were lost, but Avhich was finally 
suppressed by severe measures. The destruction of limb and life 
during these fatal days on the part of the Mexicans never was pre- 
cisely known, but it must have been immense. The accuracy of the 
American aim, both of infantry and artillery, always told upon the 
crowded masses of the enemy with terrible effect. 

Meanwhile, there were other engagements which form a part of the 
historical survey of the war. Major Lally, conducting about 1,000 men 
from Vera Cruz to Jalapa, was beset at different points in his march 
by numerous guerilla forces, on Aug. 10th, 12th, Sunday 15th, and 
19th, but reached his destination, and retook possession of Jalapa, 
which had been vacated by G«n. Scott in his advance to the capital. 
The Mexican loss in killed and wounded was very great. 



HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THE WAR. 297 

A garrison had been left at Puebla, with 1 ,800 sick in the Hospitals, 
under the command of Col. Childs. A close investment and assault 
were maintained by the Mexicans during twenty-eight days, from Sept- 
13th until the American troops were relieved by the arrival of Gen. 
Lane with 2,000 troops from Vera Cruz. Santa Anna, flying from the 
conquerors of the capital, conducted operations with large reinforce- 
ments during the latter part of the siege, but was unable to force 
capitulation. 

On Oct. 9th, Gen Lane had an engagement with Gen. Santa Anna 
at Huamantla. 

The town of Alixco, a resort of guerillas, was bombarded and taken 
by Gen. Lane on Oct 19th. 

On the 16th of March, 1848, Gen. Price fought a battle in the town 
of Santa Cruz de Rozales, belonging to the province of Chihuahua, 
and about sixty miles south of the capital of the same name, against 
Gen. Angel Trias, defeated him, and took him and his troops prisoners. 

Other inconsiderable affairs with bands of the Mexicans occurred in 
various quarters of the country, but not of suflScient moment to be 
recorded in tliis dark calendar of misery and death. In another con- 
nection a statement will be made of the mortality of the war. 

During the autumn of 1847, Gen. Scott was largely reinforced by 
troops from other garrisons in Mexico, and by regulars and volunteers 
from home, until his army exceeded 20,000 men. He retained pos- 
session of the capital until negotiations of peace were concluded be- 
tween N. P. Trist, late Commissioner on the side of the United States, 
but not at that time authorized to act in that capacity, and Commis- 
sioners on the part of Mexico. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was 
finally signed by the parties, Feb. 2, 1848, and ratified witli amend- 
ments by the American Senate, and signed by the President, March 
10th. It was then returned to the Congress, and finally accepted by 
that body on May 25th, and ratified at Queretaro, by Ambrose H. 
Sevier and Nathan Clifford, Commissioners on the part of the United 
States, and Luis de la Rosa, Minister of Relations of the Mexican 
Republic, on the pai-t of that Government. During the month of 
June, the capital and country of Mexico were generally evacuated by 
the American troops, and the blockade of the Mexican ports raised. 

In concluding this imperfect historical sketch, it is only necessary 
to state that the facts have been mainly derived from the official docu- 
ments relating to the wai-. published under the authority of the Con- 
gress of the United States. The inferences and uses to be drawn from 
these facts have occupied preceding pages of this, review. But we can 



310 APPENDIX. 

Dnly pause here a moment to remark, how awful is the simplest record 
of war ! How much of all that is most horrible in pain, and sickness, 
and loss of character, and ruin of " body, mind, or estate," is compre- 
hended under the bald and dry statistics of marchings, fightings, sieges, 
and conquests ! If all this operation be glory, then, in the name of 
heaven and humanity, we ask what is shame 1 If this be a work for 
which we should applaud, honor, and rewai-d the actors, then for what 
deeds, in the range of possibility, should we condemn and execrate 
them? 

" First, Envy, eldest bom of hell, imbrued 
Her hands in blood, and taught the sons of men 
To make a death which nature neyer made, 
And God abhorred. * * * 

One murder made a villain. 
Millions a hero. Princes assumed a right 
To kill ; did nvunbers sanctify the crime ?"* 

* Bishop Porteus's Poem on " Death." 



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